


Lightning

by lookingforthestars



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:39:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 47
Words: 83,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4439666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforthestars/pseuds/lookingforthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots about Walter, Paige, Ralph and their Scorpion family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Are We Doing?

"What. Am. I. Doing."

Paige's hands were trembling as she struggled to pin back a section of hair that had fallen into her face. She had assumed that such a thing would be impossible, given the amount of hairspray holding together her updo, but her out-of-control nerves were clearly making the impossible annoying possible.

"Let me help you." Megan swooped in with a handful of bobby pins and an extra spritz of hairspray, ignoring the fact that they were simultaneously destroying the environment and making Paige a walking fire hazard. Walter's sister made a sympathetic clicking noise with her tongue while she fixed the errant strands and smoothed Paige's bangs into place. "See? It's okay."

"It does not feel okay." The Scorpion liaison spun around on the bench and crossed her legs, pushing what felt like a million pounds of embroidered fabric away from her. "I am, like, unbearably hot. Is it hot in here? Do you think I have a fever? Happy, feel my forehead."

The mechanic glanced over from her spot next to the mirror, where she was touching up her purple eyeshadow. "No."

"No, I don't have a fever or no, you won't feel my forehead?" Paige asked anxiously.

Happy rolled her eyes, put down the makeup brush and leaned her weight against the vanity. "Paige, you're not sick. You're just freaking out, but I don't know why."

"Really, Miss Commitment Issues, you don't understand why I'm freaking out?" Paige was sure that she was sweating in every conceivable place and wondered what plan B would be if she ruined the exorbitantly-priced dress that the team insisted on surprising her with.

"Hey," Happy countered, picking up her brush and pointing it at Paige for emphasis, "I may not be marrying Toby, but we've been together for two years and I haven't even  _tried_ to stab him or clean out his bank account. For me, that's a lot of progress."

Paige's face contorted as she thought about the unceasingly strange details that Toby—despite her pleas—had shared about his relationship with Happy. Then again, her romance with Walter was hardly normal. Most couples would say they fell in love sometime after their second sushi date and before they adopted a dog together; Paige fell in love with the genius after driving under an airplane with him and before he nearly died on the edge of a cliff. It all led to the same result, but she would venture that their journey was a tad more interesting and a heck of a lot more dangerous.

"Paige?" Megan asked for the third time, finally snapping her out of her musings. "Do you want a glass of water?"

"Only if I can wash down some Valium with it," Paige muttered under her breath, but Megan heard and laughed in her typically upbeat manner.

"You're nervous. It's normal to be nervous," Megan assured her. "You're not having second thoughts, are you?"

"No, of course not," Paige interrupted quickly, fearing that Megan was getting the wrong idea. "No second thoughts. It's just…everything's going to change, right? It'll be all yard work and dinner parties and joint taxes. And I don't think I can handle it if we stop—."

Paige saw Megan's expression of discomfort and opted not to finish the sentence for her sake. From the back, she heard Happy say "Gross."

Megan laughed gently. "First of all, the garage doesn't have a yard, Walter is never in his life going to throw a dinner party, and filing taxes is sort of in your job description anyway. Plus," she scanned Paige's figure in her fitted white gown, "as long as you look like that, I don't think the other thing will be a problem."

Paige allowed a small smile to slip through before biting her lip. "I'm just being crazy, right? I mean, I know this is what we both want…it's just…" Megan and Happy looked at her expectantly, and Paige fought to find the right words to explain herself. "I don't think I ever saw this coming, you know? After Drew left, I thought it would be me and Ralph against the world. Always. I thought I would never have this, and now that I do, I almost feel like…like it can't be real."

Megan opened her mouth to respond, but to everyone's surprise, Happy spoke first. "Look, Paige, you and Walter have been dating for three years, and crazy about each other for way longer than that, right?" Paige wasn't sure how to reply, but Happy waved her hand impatiently. "Whatever. I'm right. Anyway, you two have been through every stressful situation known to man. You've been taken hostage, shot at, and nearly blown up. More than once. What are you afraid of, fighting over who's going to take out the trash?"

As it often happened, Happy was right. Yard work? Walter had saved her life a dozen times, and she'd had his back just as much. They were a team, and a team as strong as they were could probably figure out a chore schedule.

Megan propelled her wheelchair forward so that she was across from the bride-to-be and rested her hand on top of Paige's. "You've been happy, right?"

Paige let her mind wander for a second while she replayed memories from the past few years: the first time he told her he loved her, and the first time he told Ralph he loved him; the first night she spent with him in the garage; their first vacation, in Italy; the first time he approached the subject of maybe—one day, when they were ready—having children, together. Paige didn't have to think long before she choked out, "Yes."

Megan squeezed her hand tighter and sighed happily. "The world will change around you, you'll probably both change in some ways, but if you're willing to fight for it, you can hold on to that happiness. And if I know anything about you and Walter, it's that you both fight for what you want."

"Yeah, so stop being weird about it," Happy chimed in, crossing her arms in front of her.

Paige broke into giggle and couldn't stop until she, Megan, and Happy were in hysterics. After what felt like an eternity, Paige took a deep breath and wiped the tears away from her eyes, smiling at the other two women. "I am really, really glad you're here."

* * *

"What am I doing?" Walter complained as he struggled to adjust his black bow tie. It was hardly his first time wearing one, but his mind seemed to be working independently of his body, and his fingers kept slipping and ruining his progress.

"I got ya, Walt." Toby appeared and grabbed the piece of fabric, tying it expertly while Walter's hands hung uselessly at his sides. "Are you okay? You look pale."

Walter ran his hands through his curly hair and took a deep breath, glancing at Toby briefly before looking away. "I'm fine. It's just really hot in here. Are you hot?"

"I—I'm going to let that one go, as a wedding present," the shrink replied, placing his hands on Walter's shoulders. "You should sit down, you're making me nervous."

"I'm fine, Toby," Walter insisted but sat down on a black rolling chair anyway. His legs were shaking so much he thought he might fall over, but Scorpion's resident pain in the ass didn't need to know that. "I haven't eaten in few hours, I'm sure my blood sugar is just dropping. Do you think they have vending machines here?"

"In this courthouse?" Toby raised his eyebrow and stared at Walter skeptically. "Well…yes, probably. But you're not hungry. You're nervous."

Walter looked offended by the suggestion. "I am not nervous," he said firmly. "I made a logical decision to ask Paige to marry me and every detail of today has already been planned. To be nervous would just be…"

"Illogical?" Toby interrupted, a smirk stretching over his face. "I've got news for you, buddy. You didn't ask Paige to marry you because it was logical. You did it because you love her. That's the most illogical thing in the world."

Walter opened his mouth to reply but shut it quickly. Toby had him painted into a corner; anything he said would either reek of denial or run the risk of insulting Paige. "You're a jerk, Toby."

"True as that may be," the psychologist replied, leaning back in his chair and tilting his hat to the side, "I'd much rather talk about what's making you freak out."

"I do not 'freak out,'" Walter protested, moving his fingers in air quotes. "I will concede that I might be experiencing an influx of certain…concerns and…emotions that are interfering with my ability to think and act at my normal capacity."

"So you're freaking out, then," Sylvester jumped in from the corner, where he had just finished sending a text message to Megan. Walter glowered at him. "Sorry."

"See?" Toby waved his hand in Sylvester's direction. "It's totally normal, Walter. I'm sure Sylvester was nervous when he married Megan. Right, Sly?"

"I threw up seven times," the human calculator informed them.

"That's…more than I needed to know, but thank you." Toby turned his attention back to Walter. "Sylvester understands you. And I feel nervous every time I'm with Happy. She really might kill me someday."

The genius narrowed his eyes and stared at Toby with a mixture of confusion and disgust. "To be fair, Sylvester is highly prone to anxiety."

"That's true," Sylvester confirmed.

"And you…" Walter trailed off and shrugged his shoulders. "I still don't actually understand you and Happy together. So that's not helpful."

Toby mulled it over for a minute and shook his head. "Okay, fair enough. Look, it's not about us. It's about you, and you love Paige, right?"

Walter lifted his eyebrow. The answer was obvious to everyone, and had been even before it was obvious to the genius himself. "Of course."

"And you're sure this is what you want? Paige wouldn't want you to do anything you're not ready for."

Walter felt a small tinge of relief at Toby's words. He knew they were true. If he ran out of the courthouse right then, he was sure Paige would be by his side, telling him that they were together and that was enough for her.

But she wouldn't need to. "I'm ready for this."

Toby grinned. "Good."

"Just one thing," Walter added, prompting visible concern from Toby and Sylvester. "I really need to talk to my fiancée."

* * *

"Paige?" She heard her name from the other side of the wooden door. "Can we talk?"

"What is he doing?" Megan hissed, frantically looking around the room as if Walter was the type of person to come barging in unannounced. "He's not supposed to see you!"

"Megan, it's fine." Paige patted the woman's knee before standing up and adjusting her bodice. "Walter, cover your eyes."

"We'll go meet the guys," Happy quickly interjected, grabbing the back of Megan's wheelchair and pushing her toward the door. Walter held the door open for them, his palm firmly pressed against his face.

"Looking good, little bro!" Megan said enthusiastically, giving Walter a onceover on her way out.

"Thanks," he muttered against his hand. Once they were in the hallway, he turned to where he assumed Paige was standing. "This is crazy. I still don't understand why I'm not allowed to see you."

"And I won't bother explaining it again because you don't care," she responded, holding up the edge of her skirt so she could walk. She wasn't wearing her silver high heels yet, and the dress dragged under her bare feet. Walter was still standing in the entranceway, so Paige stepped over to the other side of the door, just out of his eye line. "Stay where you are, but you can look now."

"Finally, I—." Walter looked around in confusion. "Where are you?"

"I'm right here. Talk to me through the door."

Walter responded with a sigh loud enough that Paige was sure she could have heard it across the courtroom. "This is insane," he argued, but he didn't move out of fear of Paige's wrath. "You know that, right?"

"Walter, nothing about us is traditional," she said in the pleading voice that always seemed to make him cave. "Let me have this one little bit of tradition, please?"

Another sigh, more out of resignation than annoyance. "Fine."

"Thank you." Paige smiled and smoothed back her bangs, satisfied. "Now, are you okay?"

Walter didn't reply for a minute. The time he took to gather his thoughts made her nervous and frantic at the beginning of their relationship, but now she had come to expect it. "Yes," he said slowly. "I just have a million thoughts, and…I'm experiencing a lot of emotions…and when I get like this, you're the one who talks me through it."

Paige felt relief course through her body. She trusted that he was ready to take this step—she would never have agreed if she didn't believe he was—but there was a small part of her that had prepared for the worst.

"Toby tried to help, but he's…Toby," Walter continued, leaning his weight against the door. Paige pressed her back against the door to stop it from swinging toward her, tilting her head up to rest on the wood. "I needed to talk to you."

Paige contemplating breaking her own rules and allowing Walter to see her. It was frustrating not to face him; when her fiancé opened up, she used physical contact—grazing her hand over his arm or through his hair, usually—to show that she would listen to and accept whatever he told her.

But she was sure Walter was already confused and anxious enough without her changing her mind twenty times, so she settled for snaking her hand around the edge of the door and smiled when his fingers tangled with hers. "What do you want to talk about?"

He took a deep breath that she could feel through the movement of the door. "All of this…you…surprised me," he explained, drifting his thumb over her knuckles. "I had a clear picture of my life before you and Ralph joined Scorpion. I was convinced that love, marriage, children—those things weren't meant for people like me. I'm happy I was wrong."

"Me too," Paige whispered, gripping his hand tighter.

It was almost eerily quiet until Walter broke the silence again. "I am happy, Paige," he reassured her, as if he could sense her uncertainty. "There's no other path I could have taken in my life that would make me as happy as I am now. But…every decision I made when I was alone affected me, and maybe Megan…but with you and Ralph…it's another set of variables that affect my decisions, and there's a chance that I could make the wrong ones. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Of course I do, Walter," Paige responded quickly, biting back a smile. She didn't want to make light of his fears, but he often failed to realize that he worried about the same things as nearly every 'normal' in the world. "And I know it might seem like this will change everything, but in the five years that Ralph and I have been a part of Scorpion, you've done nothing but protect us and put us first. We're already a family, Walter, and we'll be the same people we've always been. This just…makes it official to the rest of the world. Makes it permanent."

"Permanent, huh?" Walter let out a soft laugh, but Paige could tell he was nervous. "Are you sure you'll be able to put up with me for the rest of our lives?"

"I can guarantee you that's the only life that Ralph and I want."

Even though she couldn't see his face, she knew Walter was smiling. "Me too," he replied so quietly she barely heard it.

Paige knew the ceremony would start soon, but she wasn't ready for them to move from their spot yet. She wanted one more moment, just the two of them, before they stood in front of their family and friends and started a whole new life.

"Do you remember what I said after the first time you kissed me?" she said, angling herself sideways so she could wrap her other hand around Walter's.

She knew he did. He remembered everything, and neither of them could forget a single detail of what had been one of the best days of their lives. "You told me that you were in," he answered without hesitation. "That nothing would scare you away."

"We've been through everything and we're still here. You worried that you would push me away, and I worried that someday you might get bored with me—."

"Paige, no, never," he interrupted. "You know I…need you."

"And I need you," she said, resisting the urge to grab him and kiss him senseless. There would be plenty of time for that. "No one's ever cared about me the way you do."

"And no one's ever understood me the way you do."

They stood in a moment of comfortable silence before Toby's voice interrupted them. "Where the heck are you guys?"

Walter looked out into the hallway to see the shrink blindly opening and slamming doors, clearly unafraid of what he might stumble across. "We should go before Toby gets himself in trouble."

"Probably," Paige giggled before squeezing Walter's palm one last time. "We're going to have a great life, you know that, right? I promise you that we will."

"I promise too," Walter replied, his voice steadier now. And they both knew what the words meant—that they were ready, or at least as ready as they would ever be. "Let's get married."


	2. Problems

"Walter?"

He jumped, nearly dropping the ice pack in his hand. Paige had a terrible habit of sneaking around the garage—he knew she was purposefully being quiet to avoid amplifying his headache, but it wouldn't do any good if he suffered a heart attack instead.

"Sorry," she said in a genuinely apologetic tone. "How's your eye?"

Walter lowered the pack away from his face so that Paige could inspect the bruise. "It feels like I got punched in the face."

She tried to hold back her laughter, but a small snort slipped through anyway. She and Walter had been shopping in the supermarket an hour earlier when a man in the cereal aisle struck up a conversation with them. Paige didn't mind, but the genius was growing increasingly agitated, so she tried her best to extricate them from the situation. She was mere seconds away from making a graceful exit when the man asked if Walter was "challenged" because he wasn't talking, and Walter, insulted, revealed that his wife was cheating on him. She knew Walter was making an observation based on evidence and was almost certainly correct, but the man did not appreciate his honesty.

"Next time we'll stick with eggs," she joked, wrapping her hand around his and bringing the ice back up to his face. "Do you need me to get anything?"

"Can you hand me my phone? It hurts to lean over."

Paige cracked a sympathetic smile, her heart reacting in a strange way to the pitiful look on his face. Even though she had no doubt that punch was long overdue for Walter, she appreciated that he  _usually_ wasn't being malicious—he just couldn't separate what needed to be said from what should be kept quiet.

She placed the phone on his knee and lowered herself down next to him on the couch. He scooted over a fraction to give her more room, but the movement caused him to wince and she watched his fists clench until his knuckles had turned white.

"Are you okay?" she asked, instinctively reaching out to touch his free hand. He seemed uncertain how to react, tensing up for a moment before pulling his hand away and using a scan of his palm to unlock his phone.

"I'm fine," he said quickly, making a show of checking his text messages. He spent what felt like an eternity reading a message from Megan, despite the fact that it was only seven words long. "Thank you," he added as an afterthought, knowing that Paige was always suspicious of the word 'fine.'

"Sure." Paige angled her body as if she was going to push herself off the couch, but changed her mind at the last minute and twisted back around to face him. "Walter?"

"Hm?" he replied without looking up from the screen.

The liaison knew Walter much better than he gave her credit for, and it was obvious to her that he was avoiding her gaze. She let out a sigh and stared down at her hands, wringing her fingers together. "I know that it makes you…uncomfortable…to be touched. I'm sorry, it's kind of an automatic reaction for me. But I just want you to know that I'm working on it, okay?"

Walter felt his heart drop into his stomach. It was true that he didn't typically appreciate physical contact, but he'd come to accept that it was different with Paige. The idea of her lessening her already fleeting gestures filled him with a mild panic, but he couldn't tell her that.

"It's okay," he finally managed to choke out. "Don't worry about it."

"Thanks, Walter," she said, glancing at him with an unreadable expression. He watched Paige's fingers stretch toward him, then retract quickly, as though she had planned to touch him again and thought better of it. "Thanks," she repeated distractedly before moving to stand up.

Paige was clearly upset about something, and Walter was startled to realize that he felt unsettled too. Before she could leave and he could talk himself out of it, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, spinning her around to face him. She stared at him with a mixture of surprise and curiosity.

"Um…" Walter started uncertainly. He was in an awkward position, still sitting on the couch, one hand on her arm and the other holding the ice pack by his side, and he cursed himself for not planning this out better, whatever  _this_ was. A surge of adrenaline coursed through his body, temporarily disguising the pounding sensation in his head.

There was a moment of eternal silence between them as Paige watched him expectantly and he frantically searched his mind for a clue about what to do next. He had passed the point of no return; he couldn't laugh it off and pretend it was nothing when they both knew it was something.

"Walter?" she prompted. His fingers were grazing the inside of her wrist and he could feel her pulse jumping wildly. He heard his own thumping heartbeat in his ears, so loud it drowned out everything except her voice. "Walter, are you okay?"

He swallowed hard before finally—reluctantly—releasing her from his grip. "I, um…" he started again in shaky voice, "I just wanted to say…"

Walter had planned to thank her for taking care of his injury or perhaps apologize for embarrassing her at the grocery store, but his mouth felt dry and the room was spinning and he couldn't take his eyes off of her. He knew he would never be able to finish his sentence.

"Walter," she whispered, no longer a question but a statement. His mind and heart raced as Paige leaned down and inched closer to him, looking as unsure as he felt about what was happening.

And then the inevitable came as her lips touched his, sending shockwaves through every part of his body. Walter couldn't tell if he was responding, if it was even really happening or if he was dreaming again. But his dreams never felt this real. He could feel Paige start to pull back and, almost on instinct, Walter captured her lips again, pressing against her urgently. She responded by clumsily tumbling into his lap, brushing her hands through his hair and over his face, too lost in the moment to worry about whether she was aggravating his bruises. His hands trailed down her sides until he found her hips and pulled her closer to him, eliciting the quiet murmur of his name.

Walter wanted her, he wanted it all, but it wasn't right. Abruptly, he pulled Paige off of him and jumped up from the couch, the ice pack falling to the ground by his feet with a crack. She looked at the source of the noise and then up at him, her eyes wide and her hair falling into her face. The liaison stared at him in disbelief before composing herself enough to ask, "Did I do something?"

"No," Walter said quickly, running his hands over his face and cringing when he made contact with a sensitive spot. He couldn't think straight and he recognized that it was wrong to run, but in the moment, it was all he knew how to do. "I'm sorry. I can't," he said in a clipped voice before turning around and taking the stairs to his loft, knowing that he was very likely going to regret it.

* * *

Walter was hiding. It was nearly 9 p.m. and he had locked himself in his bedroom, waiting to hear the heavy click of the front door closing so that he would know Paige was gone and he could breathe again. But the click never came.

All he could think about—the only thing he was sure he would ever think about again—was their kiss. He dreamed about being that close to her, but once he was, he knew he was getting a taste of something he could never really have, and it had to end. With any luck, Paige would come back tomorrow morning and realize, like he did, that they had made a mistake and were better off as colleagues and friends.

There was a part of him screaming that this was the mistake, hiding from her, letting her go, but he silenced it. There was no room for emotional decisions if he wanted Scorpion to survive; only logic.

Walter sank back in his bed, telling himself that he should get some sleep but knowing it would be nearly impossible. If he thought he dreamt about Paige before, well, it wasn't going to get any better. He turned sideways and pushed the uninjured side of his face down into his pillow.

"Walter!" he heard a voice yell, accompanied by a loud knock that caused him to bolt upright in his bed. "Open the door!"

The genius groaned before stumbling out of his room to the entrance of the loft. He had thought they would both start fresh in the morning, but it was clear that Paige had been downstairs for the past two hours and wasn't planning to leave until they talked. Walter took a deep breath before pushing open the deadbolt and sliding the door open.

"We need to figure this out," Paige said, squeezing past him into the apartment. He looked around helplessly and closed the door behind her. She stared at the floor, tapping her foot a few times before looking up at him and crossing her arms. "That was a jerk move, Walter. If you didn't want me to kiss you, you could've just stopped me."

He  _did_ want her to kiss him; that much he understood. Walter hated to lie—even more so when he knew it would hurt Paige—so he chose not to say anything.

She absorbed his silence and rolled her eyes, pacing back and forth across the room. His head ached just watching her. "I spent the last two hours trying to figure out what is going on, and I know what you're doing, Walter. You want to pretend all this didn't happen. You want me to come in tomorrow and forget about all of this." Paige knew him well, he had to admit. "But I can't do that. No, I refuse to do that, because it's unhealthy and insane. So we're going to talk about this like adults, because that's what we are and I think this is important."

Paige took a deep breath after finishing her rant and stared at him harshly. "Do you want to go first or should I?" she asked, still pacing. She clearly wasn't going to take no for an answer, so Walter waved his hand to indicate that she should start.

"Fine," she said, settling into one spot on the carpet. Her cheeks were flushed, and Walter couldn't help but think about how beautiful she looked even when she was angry. He chastised himself for getting distracted. "I care about you, Walter. What happened down there…I wanted that, I've wanted that forever. I thought you did too. Was I wrong?"

If he had ever thought about lying to her, he changed his mind when he saw the pain behind her eyes. He didn't like knowing that he was the reason behind it and he resolved to try not to make the situation any worse. "No," he admitted quietly, directing his attention to the floor.

Paige seemed to be slightly relieved by his answer, and she stood silently for a moment before asking the real question. "Then why?"

It was a simple statement with no simple answer. How could he even begin to unpack all the reasons he had given himself to stay away from her, reasons he had buried so deep that they became a part of him?

"It was irresponsible of me to let that happen," he stated, picking a spot on the wall and focusing intently on it. Anywhere but on her. "I know—I've known, for a while—that it would be detrimental to both of us if this…we…developed into something more. I, um," he cleared his throat, "I lost sight of that, and I'm sorry. It wasn't fair to you, but I think you'd agree that there are simply too many obstacles in the way."

Paige exhaled deeply and combed her fingers through her hair, appearing deep in thought. "Is that really how you feel?" she asked finally.

"It doesn't matter how I feel," he answered slowly, drawing out the words. "I've analyzed the situation and concluded that keeping things the way they are is the best decision. For both of us, and for Ralph and the team too."

Paige shook her head fervently. "I'm sorry, I can't accept that."

"What?"

She took a few steps toward the genius, causing him to freeze in anticipation of what she might do. When they were less than a foot apart, she looked straight into his eyes and spoke again. "If you're telling me that in your heart, you really don't want things to go any further, then I'll respect that. But," she came even closer to him, "if I'm going to walk into work and both of us are going to be miserable and heartbroken because we want something we won't allow ourselves to have, then no, I can't accept that. Scorpion defies the odds every day, and I know that our situation isn't perfect, but what is there that we can't overcome like we do every other challenge that comes our way?"

Walter's brain was becoming muddled again due to her proximity, and even though his instinct told him to run again, he couldn't. Paige was standing there fighting for them—for him—even when he wasn't giving her any reason to.

"There are a lot of problems, Paige." Walter took a step backward to try and clear his head. "And even if you're right and we can overcome them, it's not fair. It's not fair…for you," his voice dropped, "to have to work so hard. Our job is already stressful; you deserve to go home and not have to fight anymore."

Paige's expression softened at his words, and she reached out hesitantly to touch his hand. He found himself unable to pull away as she wrapped her fingers around his. "There are things worth fighting for in this world, Walter. Things that we want. Things that we need."

She glanced up at him with the last word, and he felt himself grow weaker. He just wanted to spare her—spare them both—from unnecessary pain, but his resolve lessened the more she stood up to him. "This isn't a problem I know how to solve, Paige," he admitted, tearing his eyes away from her. "So I think we should just leave it at that."

Paige bit her bottom lip and looked down at the gold watch on her wrist. "Right now, it's 9:10. At 9:15, I'm going to leave the garage and today will have never happened as far as we're concerned. But first," she said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, "you get one minute. One minute to list every reason why we can't be together."

"Paige…" the genius protested halfheartedly.

"Just do this and I'll leave," Paige promised, giving him an expectant look until he sighed deeply. She took that as a sign of agreement and started the timer on her watch.

"Fine. If something goes wrong, it will damage my relationship with Ralph," Walter argued.

"If something goes wrong, it going to be awkward around the garage," Paige added, making it clear that she was participating too.

"Drew hates me and dislikes my relationship with you and Ralph. He would make your life miserable."

"It could put us at risk during missions," she countered. "If we're worried about the other one being in danger."

"The team will never leave us alone." Walter felt the answers start to flow out of him. "They'll harass us for details constantly and there would be zero privacy."

Paige cocked her head to the side. "You have a serious issue with communication. Getting you to talk about anything is like pulling teeth."

He wasn't sure if she was teasing him or not, but he replied, "I've never maintained a successful relationship."

"Neither have I."

"I have no idea what I'm doing."

"Neither do I."

They stared at each other for a long second before the timer beeped on Paige's watch. "Time's up. Of all those seemingly insurmountable obstacles, which of them do you actually care about?"

Walter contemplated her question before arriving at a surprisingly simple answer. "Ralph. And you?"

"Ralph," she agreed. "You're not going to lose him, you know that, right? You have a bond that the rest of us can't even understand. I couldn't separate you even if I wanted to, and that's not something I would ever want."

"You can't say that with certainty," Walter pointed out, although he was secretly moved by what she said. "Neither of us know what will happen in the future."

"Do you trust me to do the best thing for my son?"

"Always," he answered without hesitation. Paige had sacrificed everything to give Ralph the best life possible, and Walter would never question her commitment to him.

"If being around you is the best thing for Ralph—and it has been every day since he met you—then trust that I will always put him first, no matter what happens between us," Paige said, resting her hand lightly on his chest. They both felt his heartbeat speed up in response. "Anything else?"

"No, I think we covered it," Walter murmured, looking down at her as she advanced closer. He had lost the argument, and he didn't care. He was tired of arguing. With her. With himself. He wanted to let go.

"Good. I'm going to kiss you again, okay?" The genius only managed a slight nod before Paige wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled him close to her, crashing her lips onto his. His fears were still there, but Walter told himself to trust Paige and finally gave in, circling his arms around her waist to support her.

"It's 9:15," Paige reminded him between kisses. "Do you want me to leave?"

Walter pulled back and took a deep breath, leaning his forehead against Paige's. "Please don't," he whispered, holding her tighter as if she might slip away from him the way he had from her. But she just nodded and came back to him, her eyes reflecting a million things that he felt, and in his head he promised that he would stop fighting against her and start fighting for her.


	3. What Are We Doing? Pt 2

**AN: This is part two of the Walter/Paige wedding story!**

It was all so close for them. So agonizingly, satisfyingly, terrifyingly close.

Walter held his breath as he took his place at the end of the aisle—which, in the brightly-lit courtroom, was really just a narrow section flanked by rows of folding chairs—and waited for Paige to come out. He was relieved that they had been able to talk in her dressing room, albeit with some smoke and mirrors, but he was anxious to see her. Anxious to stand next to her, to tell her how much he loved her, to make sure it was all real, that it wasn’t just in his imagination.

If it was, he would have deserved it. For years he had denied his feelings for her, pushing them away as if they were poison seeping into his mind. His life—all of his identity and self-worth—was dependent on his intellect, his ability to think the way no one else could. But Paige had the power to take it all away. In those moments when she would glance over at him, her eyes trained on him for longer than he could bear; when she stood so close that he could touch her, but he felt like she was a million miles out of his reach; when she would pause by his desk and say goodnight, and then leave the garage and cause this terrible feeling in his chest. He couldn’t think when she was around, and often couldn’t sleep or eat either. It was a bit like being in the rabbit hole, except that no one knew how to pull him out, least of all himself.

Walter thought that the answer was to run from her. He sabotaged every opportunity they had to be alone together and regularly expressed his belief that romantic relationships were based on an unattainable fantasy, hoping fervently that if Paige believed him and moved on, then maybe he could too.

What he hadn’t understood at the time, of course, was that he felt nothing more or less than countless millions of people had felt before him. Walter was in love, and avoiding Paige only intensified his unhappiness. So slowly, he let her in, hoping he could get back to normal. But it was better than normal, better than anything else he had experienced. He began to see the world, not as a puzzle that needed to be solved, but as a home. Somewhere that he could find his place.

It was all thanks to Paige and Ralph, and he was unbelievably…well, it was still difficult for him to analyze the concept of luck, but he knew that the odds of them making it to this point had been astronomical. Paige had opportunities for a normal life—chances to find someone who knew she was special and didn’t waste any time with her, the way Walter had. He could have—should have, maybe—lost her a million times over, but he didn’t, and now he was determined to give her everything.

Walter pulled his mind into the present, sneaking a glance over to the rest of the team. Toby had his arm wrapped around Happy’s shoulders—she’d only recently stopped threatening to break his fingers when he initiated PDA—and Megan and Sylvester gripped each other’s hands tightly. Cabe was leaning to the side, whispering something to Ralph that was shielded by his outstretched hand. The young genius beamed, locking eyes with Walter and smiling broadly. Walter couldn’t help but return the gesture. No best man or maid of honor, groomsmen or bridesmaids—their cyclone was a family, and being there was enough for every single one of them.

Walter was distantly aware of music playing, and he swallowed hard as the wooden doors swung open. And there she was. So beautiful, he didn’t even have words for it. He wasn’t sure the right words existed. Her lips and cheeks were flushed pink, and the beads on her dress caught the afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows. The genius had tried to prepare himself for this moment, to plan what he would say and do at every step of the ceremony, but all he could do was stare. He was seeing her for the first time, all over again, and she was amazing.

Paige seemed slightly embarrassed by the attention and made her way up the aisle quickly, pausing only to wink at Ralph. She’d insisted that she was fine coming in alone, even though the team knew that it had to open the wounds, in some ways, left by the loss of her parents. She passed her bouquet off to Happy and took her place next to Walter, flashing him a nervous smile. “Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” Walter replied, taking his time to study her embellished dress. He wanted to get it right, but he was at a loss. “You’re, um…”

Paige cut him off before he could spent half the ceremony rambling a compliment. She understood anyway. “Thank you,” she replied, tilting her head to the side and giving him a knowing smile.

Walter could hardly pay attention to the officiant’s words—he was captivated by her, and only her. Paige was trying to listen to the proceedings, but she could feel the heat of her fiancé’s gaze on her, and she stole glances at him after every few words.

“Now, Walter and Paige would like to exchange vows they’ve written. Mr. O’Brien, would you like to start?”

Paige turned to face him, excited to hear what he had to say. But he didn’t move, just stared at her intensely. She was suddenly worried that he had frozen up, or had second thoughts and was trying to calculate the best exit strategy. “Walter?” she prompted.

The rest of the Scorpion members were deadly silent, panicking slightly although they refused to show it. After Paige had waited what felt like an unbearable length of time, Walter shook his head and looked around the room, as if he was coming out of a trance. “Am I supposed to talk now?”

Paige couldn’t hide her relief and put her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. The rest of the team chuckled too. A faint blush crept over Walter’s cheeks. “Sorry, I’ve never done this before.”

It was exactly the kind of thing Walter would say, and Paige smiled with the knowledge that he would always be her awkward, adorable genius. It was who she fell in love with, and who she would love forever. “It’s okay, neither have I,” she said quietly to put him at ease.

“Right.” He cleared his throat and stood straighter, rifling through a pocket in his jacket before producing a white notecard. “Honestly, um, Megan helped with these,” he admitted, glancing at the writing in front of him. “Because, even though I’ve gotten better, I still can’t always…understand the things I want to tell you, let alone express them without messing it up. But Megan seemed to know what I wanted to say. So here it goes. For fifteen years, I tried to save the world for me. I felt like it was what I needed to do to make up for the mistakes I made.” Walter looked sideways to where Cabe was sitting, the two sharing a solemn look before he turned his attention back to Paige. “But now…” he said, his serious expression melting suddenly into a smile, “now, I want to save it for you and Ralph. So that the two of you can wake up every day and the world will be a little better than it was the day before. I owe everything to you, Paige. We were a bunch of geniuses with no direction and no real future, and you made us a family. We’re so much stronger together than we could ever be apart. And I love you, Paige. I never understood what that meant before you, and I don’t think I could have understood with anyone else. So whether we’re…I don’t know, chasing down terrorists, or fixing up some really old house we bought…” the spectators laughed. “It doesn’t matter, because we’re a team, and we’ll get through it together.”

Walter looked at Paige for approval, knowing that emotional speeches were her department, but she was nearly speechless. The bride tilted her head up, trying to wipe away the tears that had formed without ruining her makeup. “Perfect,” she whispered when she could finally speak, earning a relieved smile from the genius.

“Miss Dineen?” the officiant said, breaking her out of her reverie.

“Yeah,” Paige responded hastily, her voice thick. She didn’t need notecards—if she was being honest, she’d been practicing the words in her head for years. “The first time we met, I thought you were a jerk,” she started, sparking laughter among the audience, Toby louder than the rest. “But it didn’t take me long to realize that I was wrong, that you are the bravest, kindest, most selfless person I’ve ever met. It’s not enough for you to be happy—you’ll sacrifice everything to make the people you care about happy, and I admire that more than you know. Your genius enables you to save people every day, but it’s your heart that motivates you to do it. And I thought that Ralph and I didn’t need anyone else, but that’s only because I didn’t know someone like you existed—someone who could love us unconditionally and bring out the best in us. We’re so lucky. I’m so lucky. I love you, Walter. No matter what, I’ll be here.”

And there it was. Paige could have spent hours listing all the things that had drawn her to him, all the moments that she knew he was the one, even before they were together. But they would have their whole married life to do that, and besides, the cyclone was more than ready to eat dinner and hit the bar. “Rings?”

Walter nodded to the officiant and turned to Cabe—by the far the most trustworthy of the bunch, what with Toby’s gambling and Sylvester’s fear of any kind of responsibility—who handed him the two wedding bands. Paige took a simple gold band and slid it onto Walter’s finger. Yet another tradition that the genius had never cared for, but it was different now. He was proud to be marrying Paige, and he wanted everyone to know.

Next went Paige’s ring, a silver band dotted with round emeralds. She had pretended to “leave” a picture of the ring lying out in his loft; in reality, it didn’t matter to her what type of ring he bought, she just wanted to alleviate some of his anxiety. After the bands were exchanged, Paige gripped both of Walter’s hands in hers and bit her lip, knowing what was coming next.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

The Scorpion team shouted and cheered wildly, unconcerned with any kind of dignity and absurdly happy that the moment they’d all hoped for had finally come. Walter leaned forward and kissed Paige intensely, not even believing himself that they had done it. She was his wife, and he was her husband.

* * *

 

“It’s just like that party we had at the garage.”

Paige sighed, wrapping her arms tighter around Walter. After the team attacked their dinners (and the accompanying liquor) at the reception, they’d danced around the restaurant and carried on for a good three hours. Walter and Paige were squeezing in their last dance of the night, and she was right—it reminded him of the last time they danced, at the party he ostensibly threw for potential customers but that was really, as always, for Paige.

“Except better,” he murmured in her ear, playing with the strap of the short green dress she’d changed into. “Because we’re leaving together.”

“That is better,” Paige whispered back before she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I can’t believe we got married.”

Walter pulled his wife in closer and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry I took so long, Paige.”

The liaison leaned back slightly, glancing at him with a sympathetic look. “Hey. It took you exactly as long as it was supposed to take.” She trailed her palm along his cheek. “And I would have waited a lot longer if I had to.”

Walter felt weak at the smile she was giving him. The power she had over him was overwhelming, but he knew that she would never abuse it. They were partners, and he trusted her with his life. Their life.

“You’ll have to leave soon if you want to make your flight in the morning,” Cabe cut in, appearing behind Walter with a glass of champagne in his hand. “This genius just had to schedule your flight for seven a.m., didn’t he?”

Walter shared a grin with Paige—she knew what he would say before he said it. “It was efficient.”

Paige disentangled herself from Walter’s grip and hooked her arm around his elbow. “How’s Ralph?” she asked, craning her neck to look for the boy.

“Passed out,” the agent replied, taking a sip from his glass. He read her concerned expression and patted her shoulder. “Ralph will be fine when you’re gone. Drew landed this afternoon and he’s got the whole week already planned out. They’ll have a blast.”

“I know,” she said, sounding entirely unconvinced even though she was glad that her son and his father had finally developed a steady relationship. “It just seems like such a long time.”

“It’s only five days,” Walter replied before clearing his throat. “Although that does seem like an awfully long time to leave the team alone…”

“They’ll be fine,” Cabe interjected before the genius had time to talk himself out of their honeymoon. “I’ll watch out for them. Make sure they don’t commit any felonies. Keep the property damage to a minimum.”

Paige let out a giggle before kissing Walter’s cheek. “I’m going to go spend a minute with Ralph, okay?”

Walter nodded and watched as she made her way over to the chair where Ralph was sleeping, crouching down next to him and loosening his tie. He couldn’t believe how much the two of them had changed everything. “Who would have guessed, right?” Cabe joked, reading his mind.

“It was certainly…improbable,” Walter answered. They watched Paige and Ralph in silence for a minute before the genius turned toward his mentor. “I never would have made it here without you, Cabe.”

The older man cleared his throat and stared at the wall ahead of them. “You would have been fine.”

“Maybe,” Walter said in a quiet voice. “But fine isn’t the same as happy.”

“I guess not.” When Cabe hazarded a glance at Walter, the genius could tell how emotional he was. “I’m really glad that you’re happy, Walter. That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

Before he had really thought it out, Walter pulled Cabe into a hug. It was highly uncharacteristic for him, but he’d just gotten married and that fact alone proved that anything was possible. When he let go, the agent squeezed his shoulder and walked away.

Toby appeared next, carrying Happy in his arms. Under normal circumstances she would never have allowed him to pick her up, but she was clearly in too much of a celebratory mood to care. “Have a great honeymoon, Walt. I want to hear every detail when you get back.” He paused for effect before winking. “ _Every_ detail.”

Walter started to reply that that was never going to happen, but Toby was already headed for the door. Happy, in her drunken giddiness, flashed him two thumbs up and yelled “Waige forever!”

“Thanks,” the genius said uncertainly as the two disappeared from the restaurant. Sylvester and Megan, less inebriated but still excitable, took the opportunity to make their exit as well.

“Have fun, little bro.” Megan motioned for Walter to lean down so she could kiss his cheek. “Don’t miss us too much.”

He laughed quietly, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “Okay.”

The mathematician offered him congratulations and a quick hug before grabbing Megan’s wheelchair and whisking her toward the door, making her laugh as she cheered for him to go faster. Walter had never been comfortable leaving his sister, but at least he knew she was in good hands now. The best hands.

Paige reappeared by his side, linking her fingers with his. Cabe was carrying a deadweight Ralph in his arms, pausing every few seconds to readjust him. Walter smiled at the sleeping kid and ran his fingers through his hair. He knew he would never be Ralph’s biological father, but that wouldn’t stop him from giving the young genius everything he had.

“Ready?” Paige asked, tugging on his hand. He smiled at her and as the four of them left, Walter snuck one last look around the restaurant. Months spent planning for one day that was almost over. But he didn’t care. All that mattered was that he would wake up next to her tomorrow morning, and the morning after that, and the one after that. And together, their family would change the world.

 

 

 


	4. Proof

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, spoiler (according to CBS): A camera captured Paige kissing Walter in the hospital. There are a couple of good fics about this already, but I just wanted to try one out! (And if you haven't seen the sneak peek pictures yet, do it, they're adorable.)

"Oh, this is gold." Toby placed a hand over his mouth and shook his head in disbelief. He took a quick look around the garage to make sure that no one else was watching before waving to the mechanic in the corner. "Happy, you've got to come see this," he whispered.

Happy sighed and pulled off her gloves, glancing at him disapprovingly. "Good God, what now?"

"Just…get over here," he hissed urgently.

She debated for a second before giving in and walking up to the edge of his desk. "This better be worth it."

"So, so worth it," Toby chuckled, turning his computer screen slightly so she could have a better view. He did another scan for any eavesdroppers and pulled up a video he had minimized.

"Toby, what—."

"Just watch."

Happy tapped her foot impatiently while security footage began to play. It was dark—she had to give her eyes time to adjust—but she could just make out Walter sleeping in his hospital bed. He'd only gotten home ten days ago, bruised and wearing a brace to support his fractured hand, but alive.

It wasn't long before she understood what Toby was in such a tizzy about. Paige arrived in the room, her figure illuminated only by the lights in the hallway behind her. Happy knew that the liaison had volunteered to stay behind and make sure Walter was cared for, but even she was more than a little surprised when Paige leaned down and kissed him before settling into a chair next to his bed.

Toby minimized the video again and gave her a self-satisfied smirk. "Right?"

Happy grabbed the arms of his chair and swiveled him around to face her. "Why the heck do you have this?"

The shrink shrugged noncommittally. "It just popped up. Weird, huh?"

"Doc…" she said in a warning tone that he knew well.

"Fine," he said, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Our lovely Miss Dineen has been an unmitigated trainwreck since that night at the hospital. Every time Walter comes within twenty feet of her she gets all nervous and twitchy. She talks too quickly and laughs too loud. Haven't you noticed?"

"No, because I mind my own damn business," Happy countered, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Toby ignored her. "I knew something weird must have happened that night at the hospital, so I hacked into the security camera footage, and…well, it's still good to know that I'm never wrong."

"It's lunchtime, guys!" Paige called, popping her head out from the kitchen. "Your projects can wait!"

"Be right there," Happy said in a fake-sweet voice, waiting until Paige disappeared before turning her attention back to Toby. "First, you are wrong a shocking amount of the time. Second, what exactly are you planning to do with this information?"

"Happy," he replied in a condescending way that made her tempted to punch him. "Our two friends are so emotionally repressed that he has to be hanging off the edge of a cliff or unconscious for them to even try to address their feelings for each other. This seems like a good first step toward chipping away their denial, doesn't it?"

The mechanic pointed her finger in his direction. "Don't you dare, Toby. At best, you make things awkward for Paige and Walter, and the rest of us in consequence. At worst, Walter  _fires_ you for spying on him. You need to stay away."

"Never been my strong suit," Toby mumbled under his breath. Happy glared at him. "Fine, okay, I won't get involved," he offered more loudly.

Happy rolled her eyes. "Of course you won't," she said, not believing him for a second.

* * *

Toby volunteered to clean up after lunch, to which the rest of the team readily agreed and disappeared, leaving their dishes and crumpled napkins strewn across the table. Walter was the last to get up, just as Toby had hoped. "Hey, Walt," he greeted cheerfully.

Walter narrowed his eyes. When the shrink approached him with that kind of enthusiasm, there was always reason to be suspicious. "What do you want?" he responded flatly.

"Me? I don't want anything," Toby started slowly, making a show of picking up the plates and stacking them in the sink while Walter waited impatiently behind him. "Quite the contrary, actually, I have something for you. Some…genuinely fascinating information."

Walter let out a heavy sigh. "Toby, I'm tired and I need to get Happy to adjust this brace," he argued, tapping the metal contraption surrounding his hand. "Can this wait?"

"It could," Toby said offhandedly, waiting until Walter turned around and walked toward the door to continue. "I just thought you might want to know, since it involves you and Paige. But sure, we can talk about it later."

The psychologist bit back a smile as Walter stilled, his hand resting on the doorframe for a second before he turned partially around. "Toby, we've already discussed this. There's nothing significant about my relationship with Paige—."

He held up his hands to stop the genius. "Spare me the speech, Walt. You lost all plausible deniability when you begged to see her on the cliff."

"I did not…" Walter responded immediately, but the words seem to get caught in his throat and he swallowed them. "I don't have time for this, Toby."

"Fine, we'll do it your way." Toby leaned against the counter and directed a challenging stare at Walter. "There's a video on my computer marked 'Proof.' I won't even bother sending it; you designed our firewall so I know you can hack it. Make it a little more fun for both of us. Watch it or don't, it's up to you."

Walter, still unsure of what Toby's endgame was, stared at the shrink curiously for a minute before shaking his head. "I'm going back to work."

* * *

Toby was an idiot, but he was no slouch when it came to understanding human behavior. Walter hated himself for playing his friend's game, but the genius wasn't good at leaving questions unanswered—especially when it came to Paige.

It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and the garage had long since cleared out. Walter had been staring at his computer screen for five, ten, thirty minutes—he couldn't tell. The file was there, just as Toby had promised, but he wasn't sure he was prepared for whatever it contained.

Paige had barely looked at him when she left at five. In the week since he'd returned to the garage, she wasn't herself around him. Several times he caught her staring at him, only for her to look away quickly instead of flashing him a smile like she normally would. If he stood too close to her, she would shrink away and let out a shaky laugh. Walter could hardly be surprised—they had both said things they regretted, and those wounds would take time to heal. Still, it felt like more, and Toby clearly knew something that he didn't.

His hand, acting somewhat independently of his body, swung his mouse over to the file and double clicked. Walter wasn't entirely sure what to think when he saw himself lying in his otherwise empty hospital room, knocked out by what was undoubtedly a potent dose of morphine. His brain shouted for him to stop the footage when Paige walked in, but his limbs refused to comply. He sat motionless, breathless, while she said something he couldn't hear and…kissed him.

The genius questioned, on the first (and second, and fifth) viewing, if he could even trust what he was seeing—perhaps it was part of some frustrating dream or ridiculous fantasy. But it made a painful sort of sense. Why Paige was so jumpy, so quiet, so uneasy. She was waiting for him to remember.

"Walter?"

He slammed his laptop shut, nearly falling out of his chair as he heard Paige's voice behind him. She had materialized seemingly out of thin air, but Walter surmised that he was just too lost in his thoughts to hear her come in. "What are you doing here?" he choked out.

"I left my phone," she answered faintly, staring at him with an unreadable expression. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

Walter cleared his throat twice and took a deep breath, but he could still feel the pounding of his heart in his ears. "Where, um, where is Ralph?"

Paige crossed the twelve steps to her desk and pulled her phone out her drawer, running her fingers over the buttons but not turning it on. "He's at a sleepover," she said without looking up.

"Oh," he responded dumbly. There was a long silence—it felt like an eternity to Walter—before he pushed his chair against the desk and unplugged his laptop. "I was just getting ready to go up to the loft. I'll see you in the morning."

"Walter?" Paige asked in a hesitant voice, but something in her tone made him freeze in place. He glanced at her fleetingly before choosing a spot on the wall to fixate on instead. "What were you watching?"

"I wasn't…it's nothing," he coughed. Walter wasn't sure how much she'd seen, and he certainly hadn't helped the situation by acting like a child caught stealing candy. He aimed for a more lighthearted tone, cracking a false smile. "Just a dumb video Toby sent me."

It wasn't technically a lie.

Paige shifted her weight restlessly, still refusing to make eye contact with him. "From your hospital room?"

Walter's heart dropped as he realized that there was no way out. He couldn't lie to her, especially when she seemed more unsure of herself than he had ever seen her. But he'd barely had time to process the events on the tape, let alone unpack his reaction to it.

"Security camera footage," Walter admitted, running his hand over his face. "From the night of my accident."

Paige nodded somberly, starting and stopping a few times until she finally decided on the words. "So you know, then."

"I know, but I don't…" the genius let out of a frustrated sigh. "I don't understand."

"I'm not sure I do either." She placed her purse and phone down and pulled herself onto the edge of her desk, swinging her legs slightly beneath her. She turned her gaze toward him, and Walter forced himself to look her in the eye, even though he felt almost incapable of handling the chaotic feelings that raced through him. "On the cliff…I thought you were gone. Forever. And the things I said to you—."

"It's okay," he cut her off almost instinctively, but she shook her head.

"It isn't." Paige focused on wringing her hands together. "I'm sorry, Walter, but I think you already know that." He nodded almost imperceptibly, which seemed to satisfy her. "And I was…relieved, I guess, to have a second chance. I'm not like you. I was emotional and I acted on those emotions. Stress, and…and happiness, and guilt."

When Walter didn't respond, the liaison stood up and reached for her things. He could see that her hands were shaking. "I'm sorry. What I did was…not good for us as friends, or for our work here. I can spend a few days away from the garage, give us both space. I'll do the paperwork at my apartment. It's fine."

The words were out of Walter's mouth before he even knew that he was speaking. "You were relieved that I didn't die."

She stared at him sharply. "Of course I was," she claimed, sounding slightly offended. "I know we had a disagreement, but I would never—."

"No, no, that's not what I meant." Walter waved his hands in front of him. "I meant…that's why you did it? Just because I was alive?"

Paige seemed as confused as he was about the meaning behind his question. The intelligent thing—the safe thing—would be to let it go, but Walter had to know if there was something else. Something more.

"I'm not sure you really want me to answer that," she said cautiously, running her fingers through her chestnut hair.

It wasn't any type of denial, and Walter found himself emboldened by her answer. He stood up a little straighter, pushing his hands into his pockets. "I need to know, Paige. Or I want to know. I don't know."

Paige picked at her fingernails absentmindedly. Walter tried not to be anxious about the extended silence between them, knowing that she often allowed him the same amount of time to gather his thoughts. Besides, he didn't want either of them to say anything hasty, exchanging words that they didn't mean in the heat of the moment.

Finally, she said, "I didn't really want to go to Portland."

Walter was at a loss, so he nodded his head to encourage her to continue.

"I wanted to protect Ralph. I would do anything and everything for him. But even when I was driving to the airport, I knew…I knew that…" Paige's voice started to falter, so she shut her eyes and took a second to compose herself. "I probably wouldn't ever be happy there, not really, not away from the team and…from you."

The last word was barely above a whisper, and Walter felt his mind and body burn at the thought. Although he denied it even to himself, he had been desperately unhappy at the thought of losing Paige and Ralph. That she felt the same way was a surprise he wasn't even remotely prepared for.

The genius released a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Okay," he said simply.

Paige's eyes flew up and she raised her eyebrow. "Okay? What does that mean?"

Walter swallowed hard and attempted to clear his tempestuous mind, save for one thought—the nagging part of him that told him not to waste that moment. Closing the distance to Paige's desk in long strides, he stopped just short of touching her. Her breaths grew increasingly shallow as she stared up at him, both of them still for a long second before he leaned down and pressed his lips softly against hers. She found herself holding back until his fingers hesitantly brushed over her shoulder, and she responded by wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in closer.

With as much gentleness as he had kissed her, he pulled away, both of them lightheaded from the contact. Taking a small step back, he cleared his throat and said, "I didn't want you to go to Portland either."

Paige exhaled deeply and bit her lip to contain the involuntary smile that formed. "I think I'll be happier here anyway."


	5. Sessions

Walter nearly dropped six scalding cups of coffee on himself when he saw them.

The garage's coffeemaker was on the fritz, and while he knew that Happy would have it up and running and probably armed by the end of the day, the team needed morning coffee to survive. Without coffee, it's entirely possible that the terrorists would actually win.

Their orders were very specific. Cabe and Happy liked their coffee strong and bitter—much like themselves—Sylvester liked his mixed with chocolate syrup, and Toby enjoyed a steaming espresso. Walter had smiled as he asked the barista to add cinnamon to Paige's coffee, realizing that it was one of the first things he learned that she liked. One of her little quirks that made her…her.

Turns out he had wasted his time. Sitting on a wooden bench in the park across from the coffee shop were the unmistakable figures of Paige and Toby, laughing as they drank from their respective Styrofoam cups. Walter watched in confusion as she smacked him on his shoulder playfully and then pulled him into a hug that was too long for his taste.

The genius shifted restlessly, unsure if he should drop in on them or duck back to the garage and pretend to be oblivious. After a minute of deliberation, he decided that he needed more time to process what he had seen and turned on his heels to head back toward the garage.

It took less than a block to reach the heavy steel door to the Scorpion office. Cabe and Happy greeted him eagerly at the entrance, relieving him of the cardboard drink tray. The mechanic took a sip from her beverage and sighed contentedly.

"That is good stuff," she muttered before reopening her eyes. "Coffeemaker's not too busted up, I'll have it fixed by tomorrow morning. Nothing I can do about the cinnamon smell though. It's burned in there now."

"Fine," Walter said distractedly, her comment bringing back thoughts of the shrink and the liaison—not that they had been far off anyway. It made his brain hurt. He pulled his own iced coffee out of the tray and made his way across the garage to his desk, slumping into his rolling chair and pretending to busy himself by booting up his laptop.

After roughly five minutes, during which Walter clicked blindly through his emails without actually reading a word, the door swung open again, and Walter was surprised when Toby walked in alone.

"Hello gang!" he said cheerfully, smiling appreciatively as Cabe offered him the espresso. "A fine day indeed. Which supervillain will be facing off against today? Parallax? Dr. Doom? The Joker?"

"No cases yet. Plenty of paperwork to be done, though," Cabe replied in a tone that was half joking and half deadly serious.

"Blech. No." Toby turned away from the agent and waltzed over to where Walter was sitting, leaning casually against the edge of his desk. "Thank you for the coffee, 197."

Walter swiveled his chair a quarter of the way around and looked up at Toby. "How did you know that I picked up the coffee?"

Toby shrugged. "Everyone has a preferred coffee shop. The Coffee Mill is yours."

"Hm." Walter cleared his throat. "Do you, um, know where Paige is?" he asked in the most noncommittal tone he could muster.

The shrink gave him a strange sideways glance, but he recovered so quickly that Walter might not have noticed if he wasn't looking for it. "She's probably just running late. I'm sure she'll be in soon."

"I'm sure," Walter said with a tight-lipped smile.

Toby patted Walter's shoulder as he stood up to leave. When he was sure that no one was paying attention, the genius leaned his weight on his forearms and ran his hands over his face. He trusted Paige, but the fact that they purposefully came in at different times and that Toby lied about seeing her made him worry. Of course he'd been concerned about losing Paige to other men since they'd started dating a few months earlier—even before they started dating, to be honest—but the psychologist was hardly on his list. She was an amazing woman, though, and he alternated between trying to control his jealousy and being careful never to take her for granted.

Walter was pulled out of his musings by Paige's arrival at the garage. She did a double take at the cinnamon latte that had made its way onto her desk before setting down her purse and coat.

"Morning," she said with a smile, pressing a kiss against Walter's cheek. "How did you sleep?"

He watched her carefully as she hoisted herself onto the edge of the genius's desk, crossing her ankles. He angled himself slightly away from her and focused his attention on his computer screen, which still hadn't seen any productive activity since he first turned it on. "I slept fine. Did you have any problems dropping Ralph off at school?"

From the corner of his eye, he saw Paige frown. "No, why?" She glanced down at the gold watch on her wrist and let out a small laugh. "Oh, I'm a few minutes later than usual. Sorry about that. I spilled something on my shirt and had to run back home to change."

"You have clothes in the loft," Walter rebutted, surely sounding more petulant than he meant to. He took a deep breath to calm himself, but he still couldn't bear to look at her directly.

"You're right, I always forget," she said breezily. She flashed him another smile and squeezed his hand. "I'll remember for next time. Thanks for letting me keep stuff up there, anyway."

Walter pulled up a security program on his computer and scrolled through lines of code, all of which felt meaningless to him in the moment. "Yep," he replied simply.

"I'm going to get started on some paperwork. It's a monster this week." Paige hopped up from the desk and ran her hands over his back. She was usually so attuned to his moods, and he waited for her to pick up on his terseness and ask what was wrong. But she just straightened the collar on his shirt and headed back to her own workspace.

The genius sighed. He didn't want to play games, but he couldn't help feeling like the reason she didn't pick up on the signals was because…she didn't care that much anymore. It was a gut-wrenching notion, and he tried to push it out of his head, but it just kept coming back to haunt him.

* * *

"I feel bad hiding this from Walter," Paige said as she sat in Toby's "private office" after lunch. "I just…I don't want him to worry. He's so protective of me, and he'd take it way too hard if he knew we were talking about this."

Toby leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the rim of his hat as if he was deep in thought. "I understand. I'm glad you've been coming to see me, though. This job is stressful—there's nothing wrong with needing some couch time."

Paige cracked a smile. She and Toby had come a long way since the days when he questioned her role on the team—frequently. Now they were colleagues, partners, and even though he could be a pain, he was certainly the best damn psychiatrist she'd ever talked to about her problems.

"I love working here," she started, tracing a circular pattern on her black jeans. "Everything we get to do, being with the team—it's way more than a waitress at a crappy diner could have ever hoped for."

She paused, and Toby said, "You're doing an amazing job."

"Thanks." The corner of Paige's mouth turned up before falling again. "It's just that when I think about how many times I came inches from dying…how many times I was saved by…sheer luck, I guess…it's a lot, you know?"

Toby nodded encouragingly and waited for her to continue.

"And now Walter and I are…together," she said hesitantly, not missing Toby's self-satisfied smirk. "It kind of scares me more, because it's not just all the times that I've almost died, but all the times I could have lost him. Don't you feel the same way about…?"

Paige trailed off before saying Happy's name, but they both knew there wasn't anyone else she could be referring to. Toby was a flirt, but when it came down to it, there was only one woman for him and he didn't see that changing any time soon. "Yeah," he said quietly.

She focused intently on the floor, inspecting the tiny scuff marks on her black boots. "Do you think there will ever be a time when it won't scare me anymore? It doesn't seem to scare Walter."

Toby shook his head and leaned forward to look Paige in the eyes. "Trust me, you being in danger scares him a lot more than he lets on. And the idea of him not being there for you and Ralph…I think that terrifies him."

Paige didn't answer for a long time. "There's really no good answer, is there?" she asked finally. Toby reached out and squeezed her knee in what he hoped would be a comforting gesture.

"We live risky lives so that others can live safe ones," he answered with a shrug. "The important thing is that you and Walter have each other's backs. The way you feel about each other isn't a weakness; it's a strength. There's not a lot you guys can't do when you're together."

That brought the liaison's smile back in full force as she climbed up from her chair and bumped his fist with hers. "You are something else, Mr. Curtis."

Toby grinned. "Thank you."

* * *

Walter threw a tennis ball at the loft wall across from his couch, catching it each time it bounced back to him. He wasn't usually a fan of sports—or any activity that required physical coordination, for that matter—but he needed to hurl something, and his dishes could only sustain one good throw.

When he'd seen Paige and Toby walk out of the back room of the garage earlier, a huge smile on her face as she lowered herself back down to her desk, he felt like his head might explode. She had caught his gaze and given him a little wave, but he looked away quickly, struggling to keep himself under control. Walter understood that he needed to talk to her and get all of the facts, but he was putting it off, fearing that he might not like the answer he received.

Things had been good between them, he thought. He wasn't always the most romantic—or perceptive—boyfriend, but he tried. For her, he tried hard. Underneath all of that, though, he knew that he probably didn't deserve her, and maybe he couldn't be too shocked when she decided to pursue something, or someone, else.

He didn't look up when the door to his loft opened, but he could tell from the quiet footsteps that it was Paige. The other team members didn't come up there anyway; they just yelled to him from the bottom of the stairs. She sat down next to him on the couch, wrapping her arms around him and leaning her head against his chest. "What are you doing up here?" she murmured quietly, her eyes starting to close.

Walter rehearsed several calm, tactful questions in his head, but instead of choosing any of those perfectly reasonable options, he blurted out, "Are you cheating on me with Toby?"

Paige bolted upright, making a little choking noise as she did so. "What?" she asked in clear confusion, as if she couldn't believe what she'd just heard.

"The park," Walter replied, gaining courage as he started to recite the facts. "I saw you this morning and then you both lied about where you were. You were in the back room together too. You were smiling when you came out. Are you engaging in a secret relationship?"

The liaison stared at him for a second longer before releasing a deep breath and combing her fingers through her hair. "I should have just told you." Seeing his disheartened look, she straightened up quickly. "Walter, no, it's nothing like that. Did you really think I'd cheat on you? With your best friend, of all people?"

He felt a little ridiculous when she phrased it like that, but he didn't know what to believe. The genius had been burned by secrets more than once, and it was in his nature to assume the worst.

When he didn't answer, she leaned over and wrapped both of her hands around his. "Walter, Toby's been…helping me." She sighed. "I asked him to be my shrink."

Walter raised one of his eyebrows but couldn't deny that he was extraordinarily relieved by the information. "Why do you need a psychiatrist?" he asked bluntly.

"Because…" Paige bit her lip and thought for a moment before scooting closer to him. "We've got a stressful job, you know? Toby understands what we do and he has good advice on how to handle the emotional toll from our cases. Sometimes I just need to talk."

"You can talk to me," Walter said gently, seeming a bit hurt. Paige reached up and ran her left hand over his cheek, brushing his curls behind his ear.

"I know I can," she said in a soothing voice. "And I should have told you that I was talking to Toby. I'm sorry you got the wrong idea. But I don't want you to be worried every time I'm stressed or feel like you need to fix things. Toby just helps me straighten out my thoughts."

Walter absorbed her answer. "Are you…unhappy?" he hazarded, watching her with concern in his eyes.

"No, of course not." Paige wrapped her hand more tightly around his and held it against her chest. "Walter, my life is amazing. I love working for Scorpion and I love being with you. Any fears or concerns I have are a very small part of that and certainly not something I would leave all of this for. Okay?"

He seemed somewhat placated and nodded understandingly. "Okay."

They lapsed into silence and Paige reclaimed her previous position against him, her fingers tracing patterns on his side. "Are you afraid of not being safe?" he asked.

Walter could feel her deep breaths. "Sometimes," she said, tightening her grip on him. "And sometimes I worry about you."

He wasn't sure how to answer. "I'm sorry," he replied as he played with strands of her hair.

Paige shook her head slightly against his chest. "A wise person told me that we live risky lives so that others can live safely. It's what I signed up for, Walter. It's not like I didn't know what the job would entail, considering that you offered it to me after we drove under a plane."

The genius chuckled and she giggled while they both recalled the insane circumstances they'd met under. More quietly, he said, "I'm glad you said yes."

She realized that she couldn't have imagined it happening any other way. That day was, to date, the most absurd day of her life, but it was also the best. The day that changed everything, and even if it all seemed overwhelming to her sometimes, there was no way she could give it up. "So am I."


	6. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just my take on what the deal with Paige's parents might be, since we don't know anything about her family yet.

“What’s wrong?”

Walter froze in his chair and slid his cell phone across his desk. He turned a quarter of the way toward Paige, who had appeared next to him with her arms crossed. “How do you always know?” he asked with a hint of exasperation.

Paige’s stance softened and she cracked a small smile. “You’re not hard to read.”

He sighed and swiveled around fully so that he was facing her. Most people he came in contact with found his behavior unpredictable and confounding, but the Scorpion liaison saw right through him. Sometimes it was frustrating, but more often he was relieved not to have to waste the energy explaining himself. “My parents called,” he said simply.

Paige stiffened for a second before resting her hand on his shoulder. “Oh,” was all she said. She’d learned long ago that it was better to let Walter lead the conversation when it came to his family.

Walter reached up and wrapped his own hand around hers, running his thumb over her long fingers. When he didn’t elaborate, she said, “Do you want to talk in the loft?”

The genius glanced over at Cabe, who was taking a nap on the couch, and Happy, Toby, and Sylvester, who were building an absurd obstacle course that the shrink would not doubt crash into, damaging even more of his organs. Walter was surprised that Toby didn’t suffer from persistent internal hemorrhaging. “Okay.”

Paige linked her fingers with his as he pushed himself up from his chair and led him up the stairs to his apartment. The team had plenty of snide remarks when the two disappeared into the loft during the first few months they were together, but there were only so many innuendos to be made, even for a group of geniuses. Now they could mostly have their private time in peace.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Paige perched herself on the edge of his bed and pulled him down to sit next to her. She wrapped her free arm around his elbow. “What did they call about?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Same as the last few times,” he replied matter-of-factly. “They want me to come visit. My mom does, at least.”

“I’m sure your dad does too,” Paige reassured him, knowing how tumultuous Walter’s relationship with his father had always been. “And what do you want?”

The genius turned his head to look at her, clearly deep in thought. “What I want…” he sighed, “is to erase the eighteen years of painful memories I have regarding them.”

She pushed herself closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. Paige couldn’t have a serious conversation without some type of physical contact, but it no longer fazed him. “I know. You and everyone else, trust me.”

Walter nodded and let his eyes drift up toward the ceiling, making mental note of the spots in the tile that needed repairing. Even if he’d gotten a little better at acknowledging and facing his emotions, focusing on something practical still helped him to process things.

“It’s been fifteen years since I’ve seen them. I think…” he didn’t know what he thought. “Maybe it’s for the best if I don’t reopen that part of my life. Things are good now.” Walter flashed a smile at Paige, which she returned. “There’s no reason to upset that. I don’t know why a relationship with them should be any different—any better—than it was when I was growing up.”

Paige pulled back slightly but maintained her grip on his hand. She chewed her lip and thought carefully before responding. “Normally I’m not one to advocate opening old wounds, but this is different. This is your family. It’s not just a part of your past that you can leave behind.” Paige pressed her palm against his chest. “It’s a part of you.”

She dropped her hand and Walter continued to watch her intensely. Paige had a way of reaching parts of him that no one else could; it was unnerving and, had it been anyone else, he would have shut down around them completely. But she always had his best interests at heart, even if it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and because of that he’d learned to trust her. “Sometimes I wish there was a bigger part of them in me,” he said. “Or vice versa. Just one thing that we might have had in common.”

The liaison nodded understandingly and stared at the small space between them on the bed. “Walter, you may never be close to them. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way, and that’s okay. But shutting them out completely…you might really regret that.” Paige took a deep breath and met his eyes. “I know I did.”

Walter raised his eyebrow but said nothing, afraid to respond before he knew what she was referring to. Fortunately, she continued without waiting for him to ask. “I don’t like to talk about my parents…about what happened between us.” Paige swallowed hard, and Walter could tell that this would be a difficult subject for her. There were many times he’d wanted to ask, but she was always careful to step around it. “Maybe it’ll help here, though.”

“Paige, you don’t have to—,” he started, but she cut him off.

“I always ask you to open up to me; it’s only fair that I do the same,” she insisted, crossing her legs on the bed and letting her eyes wander around the room as she spoke. “You know I was really young when I got pregnant with Ralph. Before that, my parents had big plans for me. Scholarship to a great college, traveling abroad, law school or medical school afterward…all of that. That was the dream, anyway.”

“You could have done that,” Walter offered hesitantly. “You’re smart enough.”

“Thank you,” Paige said with a brief smile, knowing that it was a significant compliment from him. She paused to play with a strand of her dark hair before pushing it behind her ear. “So here I am, my whole life planned out, and suddenly I’m pregnant. I kept it a secret until I couldn’t anymore—it wasn’t long. As far as my parents were concerned, there were only two options. Give Ralph up for adoption, or…”

Paige didn’t finish her sentence, the distress clear on her face. “But you couldn’t,” Walter filled in. He knew how unfailingly devoted she was to Ralph, and it wasn’t a difficult leap to guess that she was attached to him from the start.

“No,” she confirmed, shaking her head and wiping away the first hints of tears that were forming in her eyes. “But it was pretty black and white to them, so I did what I thought I had to. Moved in with Drew, had the baby, started waitressing, and…well, you know the rest.”

“Has Ralph ever met them?” he asked cautiously, not wanting to upset her further.

For a long moment, Paige stayed silent, taking deep breaths to calm herself down. Just when Walter started to wonder if he’d said the wrong thing, she stretched herself out on the bed so that her head was in his lap. She was facing away from him, so he simply twisted strands of her hair around his fingers—something he knew she found comforting—until she spoke again.

“They called me a couple of times, like your parents did,” she said in a thick voice. “Things were so bad then…Drew was gone and I was barely paying my bills. Ralph was so disconnected from the world that I wondered if he even understood what our life was like. Some days it was like…like I didn’t even exist.” Walter felt himself tense up; he had always admired Paige’s strength, even in the toughest times, but it hurt him to think about her struggling. “I refused to let my parents be around Ralph—these people that didn’t even want him brought into the world. And for them to see how hard things were, how much I was failing…I didn’t think I could handle their judgement. I couldn’t face the possibility that maybe they were right and Ralph would have been better off with someone else.”

“They weren’t,” Walter said forcefully, moving his hand down to rub her arm. “No one could have taken care of Ralph like you have.”

Paige nodded on his lap. She didn’t need him to reassure her, but she still appreciated it. “My pride kept me from trying to work things out with them. I wasn’t able to move on from the past. And then a couple of years later, my mom called to tell me that my dad had a heart attack and he was gone. Just like that.”

“Paige, I’m sorry,” Walter said reflexively.

“I couldn’t even face my mother,” she continued, her voice sounding different than he had ever heard it. “I sent a card. I think I thought that if I saw her, she might blame me, or maybe it would be worse and she would forgive me. Either way, the guilt would be too heavy, so it was easier to pretend it didn’t even matter.”

The genius cleared his throat. “I think I know what that’s like.”

“Yeah.” Paige finally rolled over so that she was looking up at him. Her eyes were slightly red, and Walter continued to run his fingers through her hair as he met her gaze. “So now you know my big secret,” she said sadly. “Your liaison to the world, the one who’s so great at forming relationships, lost someone she loved because she was too stubborn.”

Walter drifted his palm along the side of her face, stopping to rub her cheek with his thumb. He couldn’t pick up on all the nuances of facial cues, but he knew pain. He’d felt plenty of it, and he could see it etched deeply on her features. It was an expression he’d only seen on her once, when she told him that she and Ralph were leaving Scorpion. “So you’re saying I should call my parents, then?”

Paige’s expression lightened and she laughed, reaching up to punch him playfully on his shoulder. She studied him thoughtfully before continuing in a more serious tone. “I’m saying that when it comes to family, it’s difficult to leave the past in the past. It’s bound to affect the future,” she said, tugging at the collar of his blue shirt. “I won’t tell you what to do. Just know that when you run out of time, the things that were so important once suddenly don’t seem that important anymore.”

“You haven’t run out of time yet,” Walter replied firmly. “Not for you and your mother, at least.”

“I guess not.” Paige reached out again to squeeze his hand. “How about we make a pact? You call your parents and I’ll call my mother. If it goes well, we’ll celebrate together, and if it goes sideways, we’ll smash every coffee mug in the kitchen. Deal?”

The genius chuckled. She would never let him forget that. “Deal.”

“And if all else fails, we still have a pretty great family right downstairs,” Paige laughed.

Walter could picture the other Scorpion members in the garage—Toby likely strapping on a helmet to do something stupid, Cabe rolling his eyes while Happy and Sylvester made bets—and smiled. Paige was right; that was their family now. “Yeah. We do.”


	7. Ex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Paige is jealous when Janice shows up to see Walter. Prompt by ElizaPliza. :)

That blonde skank.

That blonde…skinny…charming…successful skank.

Paige took deep breaths to calm herself, but they weren't working. She wasn't typically jealous of other women—she'd never had terrible luck with men, after all, and following the fourth or so girl that she found Drew sneaking around with, she had just stopped caring. His serial cheating had much more to do with him being a selfish jerk than her being unworthy of his full attention. It wasn't like she'd spent fifteen hours in the hospital delivering HIS child, or anything.

Paige swallowed her bitterness.

The liaison heard Janice's lighthearted laugh drift through the garage while she stood in the kitchen, pretending to sort through recently bought groceries but really straining to listen to their conversation. Paige felt her palms tighten around the edge of the counter and searched for a reason to crash their rendezvous before shaking the thought out of her head. She would be furious if Walter tried the same thing, but she didn't like the idea of this woman—the woman who had always, as far as Paige was concerned, acted condescendingly toward him—suddenly popping back into his life and acting like everything was just peachy.

Paige leaned her weight on her elbows and ran her hands over her face. She was being completely, certifiably insane. After Walter's cliffside rescue was plastered on all the news stations, the garage had been flooded with calls from every person he knew (and, mostly, disliked). Janice had popped by the garage that morning with a sheepish smile, asking if she could just check up on Walter and see how he was doing.

The genius looked surprised to see her, if nothing else, and welcomed her with a tentative hug. Paige immediately froze up, but slapped on a fake smile and offered to make her some coffee. Now Walter and his ex-girlfriend were sitting on a couch in the garage, sipping their lattes and trading work stories.

Walter wasn't like Drew—he clearly hadn't had much of a past with women. Which is why it was worse, somehow, with Janice. She was one of the few that had a history with him. She was also gorgeous, brilliant, and a literal lifesaver.

Paige could feel her pulse jumping and told herself to get a grip. She had no claim on Walter, but that day on the cliff had come so close to changing everything. The genius was desperate to tell her something, but they lost their chance, and neither of them had the courage to bring it up since. Every morning she came into the garage, wanting to tell him the truth, but there was no going back once she did. There would be nowhere left to hide if he said no.

When she peeked past the door frame to watch them, she saw Janice twist her engagement ring around so the sizable diamond was hidden under her fingers. If Toby was there, she was sure he would say it was an unconscious signal to Walter that she didn't want to be considered "unavailable." Paige felt like she might throw up.

She was clearly not prepared to handle the situation. Paige abandoned the groceries that weren't perishable and slipped out of the kitchen, not wanting to draw attention to herself. She fled through the back entrance and kept walking until she was finally, mercifully out of earshot.

* * *

After a solid thirty minutes of walking—which did nothing to ease her nerves, contrary to the findings of every medical study ever commissioned—Paige had almost circled back around to the garage. Walter texted her a few minutes earlier, asking where she was. As much as she was tempted to ignore it, she was sure that Walter would send a search party if she failed to answer, so she explained that she needed a mental break and would return soon.

The liaison let her hand linger on the metal door handle, genuinely unsure if she could survive another second around Janice. She had no desire to compete over boys like they were in middle school again, but Paige was…who was she kidding? She knew the truth. Her feelings for Walter were real, and they were there to stay.

Paige took a bracing breath and pulled open the door, surprised not to hear Janice's lilting voice. Instead, Walter was sitting alone at his desk, flipping through a stack of forms and looking vaguely frustrated. "Oh, there you are," he said when he saw her. "Can you help me sort out this paperwork? I don't even know what it's for."

Paige resisted the urge to crack a smile—even the smartest people in the world could be stumped by government bureaucracy—and took slow steps toward his desk. "Sure. Where is…" she cleared her throat and tried to sound casual. "Where's Janice?"

Walter blinked at her before turning his attention back to his paperwork. "Janice left. She had to start her shift at the hospital."

"Oh. Okay." Paige had a million other questions, none of which were appropriate for that moment, especially when he was obviously focused on work. But she was clearly in the mood to punish herself, because she said, "Well, it was nice of her to visit you."

The genius scratched the side of his face and dropped the papers, looking up at her inquisitively. "Paige, are you okay?"

Not even a little. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?" she asked with caution, propping herself against the corner of his desk.

"I just noticed that you, um…" Walter leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands together. "You weren't around much today. I assumed that after you were done with the groceries, you would come out and join us, but you left them in the kitchen and disappeared for thirty-two minutes. Is something bothering you?"

Her first instinct was to say no, but she hated when Walter kept his feelings hidden from her—why would it be fair to do the same to him? She took her time to develop a response before deciding to focus on something easier. "I didn't realize you were waiting on me to come out. I assumed you and Janice would want time alone to…catch up." Paige hated the way the words sounded coming out of her mouth.

Walter crinkled his forehead like he was deep in thought and shook his head. "Janice coming by was fine," he replied slowly. "But after we talked about work, and her family, there wasn't much to discuss. She and I never had a lot in common—that's why we broke up in the first place."

"Right," Paige said, trying and failing to hide the relief in her voice. "Of course you weren't going to…"

"Going to what?" Walter prompted when she trailed off.

 _Going to fall for Janice when you clearly hadn't before. Going to get married and have overachieving scientist/doctor babies. Going to make me feel like I'm crazy for obsessing about this._ "Nothing. I'm glad you had a nice time," she covered quickly, leaning over him to study the files on his desk. "I already filled these out. Cabe must have dropped the copies on your desk by accident. You don't need to worry about them."

"Okay. Good," the genius stammered, gathering them into a pile and tossing them in his recycling bin. "Thank you. That would have been…inefficient."

"That would be a tragedy," Paige joked. There was a beat of silence, and her smile faded as she grew suddenly, painfully aware of how close she was to Walter. The liaison had one hand on the edge of his chair, just barely making contact with his upper back, and she was leaning her weight on the desktop with her other arm, grazing his shoulder as she moved. It didn't sound as if Walter was breathing at all, and Paige wasn't entirely sure she was either. The heat between them was becoming unbearable.

Lacking a credible excuse to stay in that position, Paige reluctantly pushed herself away from the desk and from him. Walter cleared his throat but didn't turn around to look at her. "Okay. I should, um, go pick up those office supplies we ordered. I'll be back in a bit," she said hastily.

"Okay," he mumbled. Paige decided they could both use some time to pull themselves together, so she grabbed her purse and phone off of her desk. When she was three steps away from the door, Walter called out her name.

"Yeah?" she answered, alternately curious and terrified about what he might say.

Walter rolled his chair sideways so that he was facing her, but he still had trouble looking her directly in the eyes. She didn't quite blame him; she was flustered too. "Since you're the…translator…" Paige held her breath. "Next time someone visits, can you sit in? I could've used some backup today. It's…it's a lot easier when you're around. It's easier to, um, to talk to you than to other people."

The genius finally flicked his eyes up to hers, and Paige felt her heart beating wildly. She was often Walter's partner in the field, but she was sure that they were capable of doing some amazing things together outside of Scorpion too. Maybe he believed the same.

Paige stared at him for a second before a smile reached her face. "I'll be here whenever you need me."

Walter couldn't help but grin back, and based on his expression, she had a feeling that he'd understood exactly what she meant. "Good."


	8. Morning

What was she thinking?

She knew exactly what she was thinking. And had Walter not pulled away, she was pretty sure they were on track to making her thoughts a reality.

Paige didn't sleep much that night—she couldn't stop reliving the moment in her head over and over again. The way he looked at her lips, his sharp intake of breath as he kissed her, her hands all over his face and tangled in his hair. She couldn't focus on anything else. As much as she missed Ralph, she was secretly relieved that he wasn't around to see her like this.

Professional colleagues? Did any part of her believe that? Maybe she'd had doubts before—Paige hadn't been in a relationship in a long time, and there was something incredibly appealing about Walter's connection with her son—but the kiss gave her clarity. She wished she was telling the truth, that she felt nothing, but it was a lie. She felt everything; certainly more than she had felt with anyone else. It made her woozy and scared and thrilled all at the same time.

And now she was screwed. Walter had made it very clear that he wasn't willing to take a chance on their relationship—even though the way he looked at her when he said it made it all the more difficult to accept. Paige allowed herself to lose control, to get a taste of what it could be like, and she had no idea how to go back.

She held her breath while grabbing the handle of the door, debating whether or not it was too late to call in sick and stay in bed all day wallowing. But she cursed inwardly as she thought about the long list of phone calls she needed to make and reluctantly entered the garage.

Paige did a cursory scan of the lower level, but there was no sign of Walter. He probably wasn't any more prepared to see her than she was him. She pushed her hair forward into her face to hide her flushed cheeks and anxious expression from Toby, but as soon as he turned the corner and noticed her, the liaison knew her efforts were moot.

"Morning Miss Dineen," the shrink drawled, giving her a very knowing look. "How are you feeling today?"

"I'm fine," Paige replied quickly, pushing past Toby to get to her desk. He followed behind her.

"You're even starting to sound like Walter. And considering that there's still tension in the air as thick as the smog in China, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you two haven't…you know." He clicked his tongue sympathetically. "It's a shame; I was hoping our trip to Kovelsky's would give you some privacy."

She dropped her bag on her desk with a thud and shot a glare in the shrink's direction. "I am genuinely not in the mood, Toby."

"Leave her alone, idiot," Happy chimed in as she appeared from the kitchen. "Don't you have some depressed housewives to analyze?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Toby said defensively, giving them both a dirty look before walking away.

Paige sighed and slumped into her desk chair, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Thanks."

"No problem." Happy hesitated for a second before setting down her coffee cup and hoisting her tiny frame up onto the corner of Paige's desk. "Look, I know I've been a little…hard…on you this past couple of months—."

Paige straightened up and leaned her forearms on her desk. "You were right to be. What I did…" her voice halted and grew quieter. "The way I treated Walter before his accident…that still haunts me, Happy."

"I know," she replied simply. "And maybe I'm a little overprotective of him. I owe Walt a lot, and I don't like to see him hurt. But what you did for him yesterday—that was brave, Paige. You could have left him behind and you didn't. So I just wanted you to know that as far as I'm concerned, you've settled your debt to him."

Paige had told herself more than once that she didn't care about Happy's opinion of her, but she was strangely relieved to receive some form of forgiveness from the mechanic. She doubted that she would ever fully forgive herself, and she respected and cared about Happy, as she did the rest of the team. "I appreciate that. Thank you."

Happy offered a curt nod before jumping off the desk, taking her coffee with her as she disappeared to her corner of loud music and scary tools. Paige dragged her hands over her face and let out a deep breath before turning her attention to the files in front of her. Even though Cabe assured her that Walter didn't blame her for the accident, the genius had never said as much—not that she was sure she would believe him, anyway. Maybe that was the reason he was holding back now. Maybe he felt like he couldn't trust her; that she would surely hurt him again and he wouldn't be able to cope. Maybe he just saw their track records from the past and concluded that they had no chance of lasting as a couple. Maybe he just didn't want her badly enough to try.

Whatever the reason, Paige wished she knew how to convince him otherwise.

* * *

Walter froze as he heard a knock on the loft door. No one ever went upstairs except for Paige, and if she came anywhere near his personal space, he couldn't guarantee what would happen. He breathed a sigh of relief as Toby's voice drifted in from the other side. "Got a minute to talk?"

"Come in," Walter said, pulling his black tie tight around his collar. His insufferable metal brace was leaving small marks and tears on every item he owned, but he could hardly ask Paige to assist him anymore. "What is it, Toby?"

The shrink shut the door delicately and leaned against it, folding his arms in front of him. He eyed Walter curiously. "What happened to you two last night?"

The genius's hands stilled and he stared in the mirror, avoiding Toby's gaze like the plague. Of course he would know that something was off—he was both a world-class psychologist and a world-class stalker. "Nothing happened," he muttered, knowing fully that Toby wouldn't buy it but hoping he could stall until the shrink got bored and left.

"Of course, that's why Paige looks so flustered and sleep-deprived," Toby rebutted sarcastically, tapping his index finger against his chin. Walter tensed up again. He knew that Paige wasn't being entirely honest when she said that she didn't feel anything, but was she really struggling as much as he was? "I guess my typically spot-on observations about you and Paige were somehow wrong today. The day after you both admitted within earshot of the entire team that you had feelings for each other."

"Toby…" he warned.

"No, Walter," the behaviorist cut him off, exasperation coloring his voice. "My turn. I'm not sure if you knew what you were going to say to Paige when you were on the cliff, but I've got a pretty good idea. You survived, buddy. You got a second chance. And now you know for sure that you and Paige want the same thing, and you're running away from it again? Do you know how much you're going to regret that?"

The genius swallowed hard before smoothing down his shirt collar, still refusing to look in Toby's direction. "What do you care? You said you thought it was a good idea for me and Paige to remain colleagues when you were inappropriately spying on us."

"First of all," Toby pointed at Walter, "it's not my fault that you two can't have a private conversation without broadcasting it over the comms. But more importantly, I have pushed you repeatedly to tell Paige how you feel. She makes you better, Walt. She makes you happy."

Walter opened his mouth to answer, but he was suddenly overcome by a woozy feeling as his elevated stress level started to trigger another attack. He gripped the edge of the mirror and took deep breaths to calm himself. "This isn't a good time, Toby."

"Walt." The behaviorist's tone softened and he took several steps forward until he reached Walter, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Look, if you think that staying away from Paige is the best thing for both of you, then do it. It's just…you've already given up so much. Sacrificed and lost so much. I would hate for you to lose out on one more good thing."

The genius took a last slow breath as he rode through the wave of dizziness. He relaxed his grip and straightened up, turning away from the mirror to face Toby. "I know what I'm doing," he said with conviction, even though he really wasn't sure at all.

* * *

When Paige heard the door to the loft open and steps fall on the staircase, she wasn't sure what to do with her hands…or her eyes…or any other part of her body. She stared at the forms on her desk, acting as if she was reading them with rapt attention. Part of her craved the opportunity to see him, but the other eighty percent dreaded her own reaction.

Professional. She could do it. Friends and colleagues. Friends and…

Her thoughts dissipated when Walter reached the bottom of the stairs. Against her better judgment, she snuck a brief sideways glance at him. Their eyes locked for a split second before they both looked away, pretending that they hadn't seen each other. Pretending. Always pretending.

After several long minutes of looking at the items littering her desktop and willing herself to focus on more productive thoughts, Paige heard a noise and jumped in her chair. It was Walter, clearing his throat as he stood in front of her. "Do you have the Emerson reports?"

"Yep," she said in a clipped voice. The liaison reached down and rifled through her bottom desk drawer, painfully aware of Walter's eyes on her the entire time.

She sat back up and handed a green file folder over to the genius, but he lingered at the desk, shifting his weight between his feet. After a period of deafening silence, he murmured a thank you and went back to his workstation. Paige let out the breath she didn't know she was holding.

It went on like this all day—back and forth glances, walking in wide arcs around each other, waiting for the awkwardness to subside so they could act like friends instead of strangers. She knew that Walter wasn't being entirely honest when he said that he didn't feel anything, but she couldn't press it. He just wasn't ready.

Paige finished her paperwork and headed to the bathroom before leaving the garage. When she walked out, Walter was nowhere to be found, but there was a note on her desk.

_I appreciate your help yesterday._

It was simple—"professional"—and probably not enough gratitude for saving his life, but she understood the intention behind it. Grabbing a pen off her desk, she scribbled a return note and folded it carefully before dropping it next to his computer.

_Any time._

She hoped one day he might believe it.


	9. Morning Pt 2

When Paige woke up that morning, she felt something she hadn't felt in a long time.

An involuntarily smile stretched over her face as she thought about her conversation with Walter the previous night. She knew that something was coming when he turned to face her and looked straight at her, but the liaison was still shocked when the words came out of his mouth. She'd replayed them over and over again in her mind, trying to make sure that she wasn't only hearing what she wanted to hear, but eventually she came to the conclusion that it was real.

He wanted to try.

Paige worried that he was speaking on impulse after his fiftieth near-death experience, but she couldn't imagine that Walter would reopen that sore subject only to shut it down again. It had been a rocky road for both of them, but the genius never played with her feelings. Certainly not the way that Drew and other men she dated had. Despite her empty words after their first intense, spontaneous kiss, Walter clearly knew how she thought about him…what she wanted…and she had to trust that he wouldn't intentionally hurt her.

Ralph, in the tradition of all children, interrupted them at that crucial moment with information about a robotics course he wanted to take. Paige was simultaneously disappointed and relieved, having not been entirely sure what she would say to Walter. She certainly couldn't grab him and kiss him again in full view of the team, but she had absolutely been tempted to.

Paige had the same reservations as Walter—she knew that a relationship between them carried inherent risks to the team and her son. Two people who were hardly experts at dating in the first place, thrown into the pressure cooker almost daily…it was a recipe for disaster. But despite the risks, despite the inevitable inappropriate comments and difficult conversations and general upheaval it would cause, it was what she wanted since the day she watched Walter and Ralph play video games on her couch. When the genius insisted that he wanted to stay friends..."professional colleagues"…Paige had resolved that she wasn't going to wait around pining for him. She was going to meet new people, and go out on dates, and drink cocktails and dance and…

She never did any of those things. Because in spite of what she thought she wanted, it turned out that everything she needed was right there in that garage.

Paige remembered how numb she felt as she watched the submarine explode, thinking over and over again that it wasn't how things were supposed to end. She remembered the relief of seeing Walter on the deck of the ship, wrapped in a blanket, smiling as though nothing was wrong. She couldn't tear her eyes away from him, afraid that she might blink and he would disappear. And that night, when Ralph grew exhausted from dancing and started to yawn, Walter had scooped him up and carried him gently out to Paige's car, resting him in the backseat and squeezing his shoulder. She felt the familiar flutter in her heart watching them, which only became stronger when Walter straightened up and they stared at each other in silence before the genius smiled and wished her goodnight.

There were so many things she wanted to say—and do—but it would take time, and she was prepared to wait. Knowing that he wanted it all too gave her…hope.

And whatever happened next, she could tell that things were just getting interesting.

* * *

Walter didn't wake up that morning because he had never fallen asleep. As physically drained as he was, the genius's thoughts ran nonstop—about a lot of things, but mostly about her. He wondered if he would regret opening Pandora's Box and revealing his feelings to Paige. She didn't know about the hundreds of probabilities he had dissected in his head—some versions of their future were successful, others were disastrous. But even his genius intellect didn't allow him to predict everything. Walter knew that he would never have anticipated the way his life had turned out, but he was happy. Both good and bad things would continue to happen, whether he made logical decisions or emotional ones.

He wanted to take the chance.

The genius wasn't sure how Paige would respond. It was possible she bought his lie that he was indifferent and moved on. Or she could have seen right through him and decided that she just didn't want to wait. Ralph had interrupted them before she responded, but her expression told him that he still had a shot.

And when Paige lingered for a moment before getting into her car, Walter wanted nothing more than to finish what they had started in the garage weeks before, but he held himself back. He wanted to do this right. He wanted to be ready so that when he finally had Paige, he wouldn't lose her.

Walter slogged through his morning routine, the lack of sleep catching up with him, and cursed himself for getting older. He had just dropped into his chair and cracked open his laptop when the door swung open and he heard a pair of feet shuffling toward him and, behind them, the tapping of boots on the concrete floor.

"Good morning, Walter," Paige said with a wide smile.

The genius glanced between her and Ralph, and suddenly, the only versions of the future that he could see looked pretty good. He grinned back. "Good morning."


	10. Heroes

_I guess with great responsibility comes great loneliness._

Walter tried not to let Sylvester see how much those words affected him. Years ago, before Scorpion and Cabe and Homeland were involved, Walter thought of loneliness as an asset. More time alone with his thoughts. More time to work on his projects. Fewer distractions in his pursuit of scientific knowledge and advancement. Less pain.

But things had changed. Pushing Cabe away after he revealed the truth behind the Baghdad incident was difficult. Thinking about the possibility of losing Megan was…unbearable. And when Paige had left the night before to pick up Ralph, Walter wished, not for the first or last time, that she would stay.

Sometimes the genius thought it might be better to go scorched earth—leave everyone and everything behind, burn it to the ground, start over. It was too late for that, though. Walter was different now…the team was a part of him, and there was no going back.

"Are you reading a comic book?"

Paige's voice snapped Walter out of his reverie and he dropped the reading material on his desk, straightening up and running his hands over his crumpled shirt. The liaison stared at him with an amused expression. "It's, uh, research."

"Mmhmm," she hummed, setting down her purse and flipping through the comic's crisp pages. "Are we consulting Superman for crime-fighting ideas now?"

"Superman is, um, an alien," he replied, trying to sound less flustered. "We use science to fix problems, not magic."

"Sometimes, it all seems the same to me," Paige sighed before placing the book back down in front of him and heading toward her desk. "Do you want me to make some coffee? You look like you had a late night," she called over her shoulder.

Walter's throat made a strangled noise and he covered it unconvincingly with a cough. "I had a lot on my mind. Coffee would be great. Um, thank you."

"Sure." She flashed him a smile before disappearing into the kitchen, and Walter slumped forward in his seat, letting out a deep breath. He imagined another reality where Scorpion worked in a regular office, and instead of stopping deadly viruses and defusing bombs, they would just spend their days making spreadsheets and sitting in on conference calls. There would be no risk—no danger in his relationship with Paige—but they would probably die of boredom.

He started to lose himself further in his thoughts, and when Paige arrived back more quickly than expected with two cups of coffee, he was startled all over again. "Where did you get that, anyway? Did Sylvester give it to you?" she asked, taking a sip from her cup and making a face to indicate that it was too hot. Walter suppressed a smile. She did it every morning and he'd given up trying to warn her.

"I borrowed it from Ray. He has an extensive collection," the genius said before reaching over to grab his coffee.

Paige rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

"You said I needed friends that were more human," Walter reminded her, shrugging his shoulders and glancing over at the trailer where "the lunatic," as most of the team referred to him, had taken up residence.

"Yes I did," she said in a clipped voice, shaking her head. "Anyway. What kind of research were you doing?"

Walter felt an alarm go off in his head. He hadn't thought about how he would explain his sudden interest in caped superheroes; detonating a nuclear weapon while dressed as one should have been enough exposure. "I, um, wanted to see…"

He trailed off, and Paige looked at him expectantly. There were a thousand innocent ways to end the sentence, but for the first time since he'd met Paige, they were following a pattern of mostly open communication. Walter didn't want to be the one to end it. The genius tapped his fingers on the cover and exhaled. "You said last night that I was, um, the real-life equivalent of a superhero," he said without looking at her. "But heroes…never get everything they want. They can save the world or they can have meaningful connections, but they can't…have both."

For a moment, the only sound in the garage was Paige setting down her mug. He kept his eyes trained on the book, which seemed to be mocking him as he started to regret opening it at all. "Oh," she said quietly, and the genius looked up just high enough to watch her long fingers trace the edge of her cup. "Are you talking about us?"

Walter wasn't sure what it would sound like if he spoke, so he just nodded.

After a beat of silence, Paige pushed a stack of books to the side and sat down on the edge of Walter's desk. He directed his eyes back to his hand, struggling to look at her the way he wanted to when they were having such an honest conversation. "I was just joking last night. You're not actually Clark Kent, Walter. And I'm not actually Lois Lane. You know that, right?"

"I know," he answered hesitantly, folding the edges of the pages with his fingers. "But the fact is that we are constantly in danger. Yesterday could have been, um, pretty close. And if we are heroes, then everything I know about them confirms my previous theory, that I can't have this and…you."

Walter glanced at her from the corner of his eye to gauge her reaction. "I, um..." Paige started, clearly unsure how to respond. The genius tried to quiet his emerging panic. "I said that I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize Scorpion. The team means a lot to me too."

"Exactly." He knew he could end the conversation right there and save himself from the immense discomfort he felt opening up to her, but he found himself incredibly disappointed by her response.

"But…" Paige continued, surprising him. Tentatively, she reached out and placed her palm over his hand, watching him even though he still refused to make eye contact. "Look, I've said a lot of things about…us, and I guess I haven't made it clear where I stand. I should have. I care about you, Walter, and I know that this isn't the easiest situation to figure out, but I think we could. If you want to…I want to."

The genius was frozen, the thoughts in his head all but drowned out by the electricity running below his skin. They couldn't hide behind transparent lies or veiled flirtation anymore—she was taking a leap and asking Walter to jump with her.

"Paige," he said lightly. Logic dictated that he should let go of her hand before their conversation became too serious, but instead he found himself wrapping his fingers around her palm. "I don't know how to do both. Superman saves the world, but it always comes at the cost of Lois. I'm not sure I would be able to make that decision."

The liaison dipped her head until she was at eye level with Walter, forcing him to look at her. "You've already made that decision. The cruise ship, trading yourself for me? That barn in Mexico? When I had a gun pointed at my head yesterday, I wasn't afraid. Because I trust you, I trust you and the team and you have never let anything happen to me before. No matter how bad the situation is, you save everybody. Including me." The corner of her mouth turned up. "I guess that makes you better at your job than Superman."

Walter couldn't hold back the small chuckle that escaped him, and he subconsciously tightened his grip on her. "Do you ever wish that we'd met under different circumstances?"

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Like what? I'm a teacher and you're a chemist, and we meet at a coffee shop?"

"Something like that," he answered with another laugh.

"Hey." Walter felt overwhelmed by how close she was, how intensely she seemed to be studying him. "You are who you are, and I don't ever need you to be anything other than that. Besides, did it ever occur to you that maybe I like saving the world too?"

The genius raised an eyebrow but didn't respond. Paige bit back a smile. "I don't go into dangerous situations because it's my job, Walter. I do it because it's worth it. Working with Scorpion…I never thought I would do anything more meaningful at work than serving tuna sandwiches, and now I get to do these amazing things every day. And, sure, I worry about your safety just like you worry about mine. But there will be always be times when we're in danger and I think…I think that we deserve to enjoy the moments that we're not."

Walter glanced at their intertwined hands. Her palm seemed so small and soft next to his, but it didn't represent how strong she could be—stronger than him in some ways. Maybe it was time to trust her…trust that she could hold things together even when he couldn't. "Like now?" he asked, a crooked grin reaching his face.

"Exactly," Paige answered, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

Much like their first kiss, he wasn't sure who initiated it, but suddenly her lips were pressed against his and his hands were tangled up in her hair. It was slower than last time, and Walter felt a strange sense of freedom—no more lies, no more holding back, no more pretending they were indifferent because it was easier.

And when Paige finally pulled back, face flushed, and giggled, Walter knew they could start their own story.

They could be the new heroes.


	11. Adrenaline

"I really hate this perfume," Paige complained, scrunching up her nose as she dropped Walter's jacket into his open duffel bag. It smelled like vanilla and desperation.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Walter said as he winced slightly. Paige didn't know about his plan to take the clothes into the nearest open field and burn them. He didn't want or need any reminders of the time he got drugged and scammed by an attractive woman at a bar, nearly killed hundreds of people (and succeeding in killing Toby), and punched Richard Elia in the face. "Thank you for bringing me back to collect my things."

"No problem." The liaison balled up Walter's undershirt and threw it into the bag before pulling the zipper closed. "Stella kind of trashed your hotel room. Or…you did. We're still not exactly sure."

The genius scanned the room and felt a twinge of embarrassment at the battlefield of shattered bottles and torn sheets. He couldn't imagine what kind of activities would even lead to that level of destruction, and he desperately hoped that it was Stella's poor attempt at a setup rather than his own absurd behavior. "Well, they have my credit card on file, so…I can say goodbye to a few thousand dollars. What's that on top of my ruined professional reputation?"

Paige let out a snort and quickly covered her mouth. "I wasn't laughing at you. I'm sorry," she said with wide eyes. "And I'm sure your reputation isn't…ruined, per se. Stunted, maybe. Temporarily."

"Much better," Walter muttered, lifting up the bedside trash can and sweeping a stack of—what were those, wrappers?—off the table. "This was supposed to be a milestone in my career, and it blew up rather spectacularly."

"Hey," Paige said gently, halting her organization of Walter's notes to stand behind him. She rested her hand on his shoulder, feeling a slight tingle underneath her skin. "If it had been someone else working on that project instead of you, Smaisie still would have uploaded that virus. At least you and the team were there to make things right."

"I think you and Cabe helped a little too," Walter said with a slight grin, looking over his shoulder at her. "Cabe told us how you took down Smaisie. Pretty impressive."

"Yeah, well…" With a confidence she didn't even know she had, Paige stepped closer to Walter and leaned up to whisper in his ear. "Whoever messes with Scorpion messes with me."

There was very little space left between them, and Walter swallowed hard as he felt Paige's breath on his skin. "Same, uh…yep," he managed to stutter. Her hand started to snake over his shoulder and against his neck, and the genius shut his eyes tightly, memorizing the feel of her skin on his. "Paige…"

"Shhh," she whispered, using her fingers to draw patterns on his skin and enjoying the way he tilted his head subconsciously to allow her better access. Bolstered by the adrenaline running through her veins, the ego boost of helping to take down Smaisie, and her admittedly insane jealousy over the thought of Walter with another woman, Paige found herself giving in to the need to be close to him. She always held herself back—acted 'professionally'—but tonight, alone in his hotel room, she lost her resolve.

"Paige," he whispered, his low, deep voice giving her chills. She continued her ministrations, tangling her fingers into his dark hair and trailing her thumb down the base of his neck.

"Yes?" she asked innocently.

"W-what…what…" The genius inhaled deeply and tried again. "What are you doing?"

Paige raised her free hand and moved it slowly down Walter's arm, skimming it over the toned muscles she'd only ever allowed herself to look at. "You could have died today," she murmured, enjoying the heat between them that was building to unbearable levels. "I think we deserve to…celebrate."

Walter shivered slightly, and Paige could tell that he was trying and failing to regain control over the situation. She reveled in her power over him…power that she hoped was hers, and hers alone. The liaison pushed her weight onto her toes and dipped her head, placing a feathery kiss on his shoulder and moving toward his jaw. Walter's tense body started to melt into her hands, and she smiled against his neck.

Paige decided to let her hands explore, and they grazed over his chest and torso while she focused her attention on the area behind his ear. His sharp intakes of breath mixed with half-hearted grumbles of protest were exactly what she'd expected from him, and she was pleasantly surprised to find that their chemistry was every bit as powerful as she had imagined it.

"Closer," she whispered, and Walter mercifully understood her meaning, even if she didn't. He twisted himself around in her arms and crushed his lips against hers, holding her in place with his hands on her face. Her grip tightened around him and she ran her fingers up and down his back, feeling him arch underneath her touch. The genius's rough lips moved against hers expertly—sometimes gently, sometimes more intensely—and Paige's mind went blank. It was what she'd wanted—what she'd dreamed of—for far too long, and if it took a drastic event for her to work up the courage, then so be it.

Walter's strong hands reached for her white top, and Paige helped him pull the fabric out from the waist of her tight skirt. His palms immediately slid up toward the middle of her back, and she gripped on to him for support as her knees buckled. He moved his lips to her cheek and then her neck, allowing her a precious moment to catch her breath, before pulling her closer to him with one arm and bringing his lips back to hers.

Paige was quickly losing her ability to stand, so she took a step backwards, Walter following her without ever breaking contact. When the back of her legs hit the bed frame, she grabbed his shirt collar and pushed him down first, climbing on top of him as much as her skirt would allow. Paige paused for several seconds, looking down at him. His face was flushed, and he was staring at her in a way that made her feel more than beautiful, more than desired, but…loved. Special. She grinned and dropped back down to recapture his lips.

"Paige," he choked out between kisses, and she hoped fervently that he wouldn't try to end their perfect moment.

"What?" she asked, surprised by the huskiness in her own voice. The liaison sat up and started to undo the buttons of his shirt.

Walter wrapped his hands around hers to stop her, and she stared at him in surprise. "Nothing happened here last night," he said seriously, his eyes showing equal parts nervousness and hope.

"Walter." Paige laughed and freed her hands, placing them on either side of his face and dragging her thumbs along his cheekbones. "I know. It's just you and me."

He nodded wordlessly and wrapped his arms around her back, pulling her back down to him. Their lips met again, and Paige released a small sigh of contentment. She was exactly where she needed to be.


	12. Distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little alternate version of what might have happened if Cabe didn't interrupt the Waige moment in "Crazy Train."

"Walter, I hit you because you scared me," Paige explained, stepping a little closer to Walter even though her brain screamed at her not to act impulsively. But why not? He had. "I was scared I was going to lose you today. I saw you disappearing into the blackness and it frightened me."

The genius stared at her intensely, and she almost had trouble reconciling the look on his face when he'd decoupled the train cars—his unspoken goodbye—with the fact that he was standing right in front of her now. He had managed to cheat death a thousand times, and although she was often nervous, she trusted him to think his way out of any situation. But it was different today. He seemed resigned about his decision to trade his life for Paige and Ralph—at peace knowing that they would be safe, regardless of his fate. And that terrified her.

He didn't respond, but she didn't expect him to. Undeterred, she tentatively reached her fingers up and traced the spot on his cheek where she had slapped him. Walter was still, his eyes never breaking contact with hers. "Does it hurt?"

"No," he replied immediately, and Paige suppressed a smile, knowing that he would never admit to being in pain even if he was. Especially not when she was the cause.

The liaison sighed and dropped her hand, oblivious to the flash of disappointment on Walter's face. "I know…" Paige's voice cracked, and she took a deep breath to steady herself. "I know why you chose to stay behind. You want to save everybody, I get that. I just wish that you cared about what happens to you as much as I," she caught herself, "as much as we do."

He continued to watch her curiously, and Paige figured she'd already passed the point of no return, so she narrowed the distance between them and placed her hand on his chest, fingers tugging gently at the collar of his shirt. It calmed her to feel him underneath her skin, to confirm that he was really there with her. "Walter, you were willing to die for me and Ralph today," she said quietly, emotion choking her voice. "Can't you be willing to live for us too?"

The genius's heartbeat quickened, and Paige dropped her eyes to where her hand was resting, unable to hold his strong gaze any longer. Her own heart was pounding in her ears, and she was sure that she would fall apart if he didn't say something soon. The silence stretched out for an eternity until he mumbled, "I would do anything for you."

Walter had proven that already, but hearing the words broke her. Paige pulled his collar to bring him closer and pressed her lips against his, desperate to show just how important he was to her…how much she needed to be close to him…how much she wanted him next to her, always. Her spontaneous mood started to crumble when he didn't kiss her back, and she froze before letting go and taking a step backward. "I'm sorry," Paige said quickly, her hand flying up to her mouth. She tried to read Walter's expression, but nothing registered except surprise. "You need time to process this. I didn't mean to rush you—."

Her apology died out when Walter recaptured her lips, locking his arms around her back and pinning her body to his. There was no more hesitation, no more avoiding the truth of what they'd wanted from the beginning. If Paige had any doubt about what he felt for her—what he was capable of feeling—it was gone with that kiss. Her palms traveled up his arms, over his shoulders, through his dark hair…anything to bring them closer together as Walter's fingers pushed up the hem of her shirt. Through the overwhelming sensation of his warm fingertips on her bare skin, Paige remembered that Ralph was still sleeping feet away from them and reluctantly stepped away.

The genius immediately looked concerned, but Paige grinned and nodded her head toward the boy. Walter understood and grabbed her hand, leading her to the bedroom and gingerly closing the door behind them. She braced herself to pick up where they left off, but he surprised her by pushing a section of hair behind her ear and smiling down at her.

"You're important to me too, Paige," he said softly, her skin burning wherever his fingers brushed against it. "When we were on the train, I thought…if I couldn't get out of this…I was happy that the last thing I saw would be you and Ralph."

The liaison blinked back her tears and pushed her weight onto her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her head in his shoulder. There was so much she wanted to say—so much she needed to understand—but in that moment, being in his arms was more than enough. "Thank you for saving us," she whispered.

Paige could feel him smile against her hair before he kissed the side of her head. "Anytime."


	13. Forever

"I can't believe Megan is married." Walter counted his steps as he paced back and forth in front of Toby's workstation, the shrink watching him with an amused expression. "Sylvester and Megan got married. This is unbelievable."

Toby cocked his eyebrow and leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the desktop. "Are you upset?"

Walter paused momentarily and frowned. "Yes. And…no." He sighed. "I haven't decided yet."

"Well if you are, I don't think it's because Megan's married," the psychologist started thoughtfully, rubbing his chin as Walter resumed his pacing. "I think you're upset because you can no longer make all of Megan's decisions. For the first time, you're being forced to acknowledge another person's input."

The genius narrowed his eyes. "I don't want to talk about this with you, Toby."

Those words usually meant little to the shrink, but to Walter's surprise, Toby just nodded. "Fine. I'm feeling charitable, so we won't go there. But…"

Walter groaned. There was always a caveat.

"But," he continued slowly. "I think we should talk about your relationship with Sylvester moving forward."

"I've forgiven him," the genius said, failing to pick up on Toby's implication. "I…I understand his actions. I accept that he was standing up for Megan's wishes. It's fine."

"Good, but not what I meant." Toby drummed his fingertips against the brim of his hat while he thought. "You've always treated Sylvester as an employee, as the scared kid you saved. And that was fine. But he's Megan's husband now. Your brother-in-law." Walter furrowed his brows, the thought not having occurred to him yet. "The dynamic between you will change. I know that you care about Sly, but now…now you're going to have to respect his place in Megan's life. That won't be easy, Walt."

The genius sank into the seat across from Toby and dropped his head in his hands, dragging them over his tired eyes. "It's just been the two of us for most of our lives," he murmured. "It's…strange to see someone else taking care of her."

"I know," Toby answered sympathetically, dropping his feet to the floor and leaning in. "But you know as well as I do that no one will take better care of Megan than Sly will. He's already proven that he'll do whatever he needs to do to protect her."

As frustrated as Walter had been with the mathematician, he couldn't help but feel a spark of pride. The brilliant, lost kid with a thousand phobias had shown, time and time again, that he was the bravest of all of them.

Walter chewed the inside of his bottom lip. "What he did…" He glanced at Toby before dropping his gaze to the floor. "He  _knew_ she was sick. He knew that a life with her would never be easy or simple, and he just…he chose her anyway. Why did he do that?"

The question hung in the air as Walter twisted his fingers together nervously. He loved Megan more than anything, but fighting her MS had consumed so much of him. And here Sly was, willingly walking into the lion's den, charging into a battle no one had ever asked him to fight. No matter what happened, he found that he couldn't begrudge Sylvester for giving her a kind of happiness that Walter simply wasn't capable of providing.

"Maybe he didn't have a choice," Toby said, breaking the silence and startling Walter out of his thoughts. He sent the shrink a questioning look. "Maybe she's the one, Walt. The love of his life. No matter how big the risk, he couldn't walk away from her."

The genius stared at him blankly before shaking his head. "That's ridiculous."

"Is it?"

"I'm asking you a serious question, Toby, and I would appreciate a serious response," Walter growled. "I thought you might have a psychological perspective on the issue, but if you're going to recite inane media tropes, I think we're done here."

"Hey, hey, hey." Toby held his hands up in mock surrender. "Geez, you could really work on your defensive behaviors." Walter rolled his eyes and moved to stand up, but the shrink gently pushed him back into his chair. "I am giving you a serious answer, Walt."

"Even if…" the genius stated emphatically, pointing his finger at Toby, "there is any…merit…to romantic attachment, you will not sell me on the concept that Sylvester and my sister are soulmates."

"The denial," Toby muttered under his breath, earning a sharp glance from Walter. He cleared his throat and continued more loudly, "There is, and that is not what I said. I'm not suggesting that they met by some mysterious force of the universe. But can't you, even in your emotionally stunted state, accept the idea that you might connect with one person more than anyone else you meet in the course of your life?"

Walter's expression softened as he leaned his forearms on his legs. "By your logic, no one would recognize the significance of such a relationship until the end of their existence. Sylvester is twenty-three. How would he possibly determine that? It would be…a guess."

"Sly's lived an awful lot in twenty-three years," Toby answered softly. "I know you understand what I mean, Walter. You, me, Sylvester, Happy…we've all spent our lives being judged and isolated by others." The shrink's eyes traveled around the garage before refocusing on the genius. He shrugged. "If you met someone who really understood you—I mean, not just someone that puts up with you, but someone who gets you—and they loved you because you were different and they brought out the best in you without expecting you to be someone else, don't you think you'd understand how rare and important that is?"

Walter opened his mouth immediately to reply and then shut it, realizing that for once he had no rebuttal for Toby. Instead, he decided to rest his skepticism for a moment and asked, "That's what Sly has? With Megan?"

"I think so," Toby said, the corner of his mouth turning up. "I think it's true for both of them."

Walter processed this before nodding solemnly. "That sounds…positive."

"It is, Walter." The psychologist pushed himself away from his desk and stood up. "Don't be upset about your sister and Sly. Be happy for them. They found something special, and no matter how long it lasts, it will have been worth it to them."

Walter mumbled a thank you before Toby patted his shoulder and disappeared into the dim rear section of the garage, following the steady hum of power tools.

* * *

"Walter?"

The genius jumped at the sound of his name. He spun around from his whiteboard to face Paige, who was smirking at him from the doorway. "Sorry to interrupt," she said tentatively. "I called your name a few times, but you didn't answer. I figured you were working."

"It's fine," he answered automatically, dropping his marker onto the tray. "What do you need?"

She leaned against the doorframe and pushed all of her hair over one shoulder, distracting Walter immensely. "There's a client coming in ten minutes. I told him you were busy with an important project and that Cabe and I would meet with him. I just wanted to…keep you in the loop, I guess." Paige shuffled uncertainly before asking, "Do you need anything?"

Despite her reservations, the liaison had taken over the majority of Scorpion's responsibilities to allow Walter time to complete his MS research. She'd brought him food and forced him to sleep and talked him down when he was frustrated, and he was so wrapped up in Megan that he'd hardly acknowledged her efforts. But now he couldn't keep the words Toby said weeks ago from seeping into his mind, and before he'd thought it through fully, he called her name.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you doing all of this for me?"

Her eyes widened slightly and she took a step into the loft. "What?"

Walter suddenly didn't know where to look, but he'd already gone too far and had no choice but to continue his line of questioning. "You have expressed…disapproval with the way I've handled my sister's illness, but you continue to support my efforts to find a cure for Megan. More than anyone else. Why?"

"What else am I supposed to do?" Paige wrapped her arms around herself and smiled at him sadly. "Just because we don't always see eye to eye doesn't mean that I'm not always behind you, Walter. You have nothing but the best intentions for your sister. I know that. I just want to help you in any way I can."

Walter stared at her for what was surely several seconds too long, but Paige met his gaze unflinchingly. "You could find someone else," he murmured, the words spilling out of his mouth before he had a chance to properly filter them.

Paige took another step in his direction and reached out to touch his arm. "What are you talking about, Walter? Find someone else for what?"

"Someone normal," he said clearly, the stress and exhaustion of the past few weeks pushing his emotions to the surface. The genius pulled away from her and averted his eyes. "Someone who can tell you how he feels and who is…reliable and comes home at the same time every day and who takes care of you instead of you having to take care of him all the time."

Paige shook her head. "Walter, I don't understand what you're—."

"I want that for you," he interrupted, running a hand through his unruly hair and looking hesitantly up at her. She fell silent, watching him intently. "But it's not who I am."

The liaison waited until she was sure he was done with his speech and closed the distance between them, curling her fingers around his hands. "I don't care, Walter." She dipped her head until she met his eyes. "I know that I'm not like the rest of the team, but just because I'm…'normal'…doesn't mean I want the same life that everyone else has. If I did, I sure as hell wouldn't be working here. Where is all of this coming from?"

"Toby," he muttered, and Paige laughed.

"Of course."

"You could find someone else," the genius repeated after a beat of silence, keeping his eyes trained on her. "But statistically, I won't. Not someone like you."

Paige froze, stunned by his admission. His eyes were locked on hers for what seemed like hours before she heard the door to the garage open and cursed inwardly. "Walter, the client is—."

But the genius's lips were already on hers, his warm palm on the base of her neck to hold her in place. She gripped his arms to steady herself and lost herself in the kiss, no room left in her mind for anything except how good it felt to be this close to him and how long she'd wanted this. It was a contradiction just like he was, forceful and gentle, passionate and sweet, brief and somehow endless.

Reluctantly, she pulled away and rested her hands on his chest. "I have to go downstairs," she whispered breathlessly.

Walter nodded understandingly, but before she could walk away, his fingers circled around her wrist, pulling her back to him. She couldn't be sure, but she had a feeling it was her who kissed him that time, their lips tangled together while his hands traced the sides of her waist. Paige used her miniscule remainder of self-control to break the kiss again, readjusted her now-crumpled sweater and smoothing a hand over her hair. "This isn't a good time, Walter," she laughed, but her smile faded as they both recognized the truth of her words. His focus needed to be somewhere else right now. Sensing his disappointment—and feeling plenty of her own—Paige drifted her thumb over his cheek. "Raincheck?"

Walter nodded and gave her a half-smile that made her feel weak. "Yes."

* * *

As soon as Paige reached the bottom of the stairs, Toby flicked his eyes up and announced, in a voice that only she could hear, "I knew it."

The liaison skidded to a halt and narrowed her eyes at him. "Knew what?"

"That he would figure it out," the shrink replied cryptically, a self-satisfied look in his eyes.

Paige opened her mouth to ask what in the hell he was talking about, but Cabe called her name from the lobby and she sighed in frustration. "Whatever, Toby. You're weird."

Toby dropped into his chair and laughed to himself. "And you're the love of Walter's life. Who knew?" the psychologist said when he thought she was out of earshot.

He didn't see her smile.


	14. Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was 100% inspired by The Neighbourhood's "Sweater Weather."

Walter flipped a page in his book, but he couldn’t remember reading the first half of the sentence that continued on it and flipped back. He’d been trying to get through the same section for nearly ten minutes, but no matter where he went in the garage, the same sound drilled into his brain—an incessant dripping caused by statistically drastic rainfall and rusty pipes that never seemed to get fixed despite the substantial paychecks from Scorpion’s cases and the technical acumen of the world’s best mechanic.

He skipped ahead to the next paragraph, but the drips somehow sounded even louder, and the rain bouncing off the metal awning was deafening. Walter had often contemplated the link between high intelligence and mental illness—unsurprising, considering his past with Mark Collins—but he’d never expected to be driven insane by precipitation.

The genius tossed his book onto the floor and searched his drawers for a pair of headphones, earplugs, anything to drown out the noise. He stiffened as he heard the front door to the garage clang shut, and for a split second, wondered if the sound was only in his head. “Walter?”

Paige’s voice. Also possibly in his head—it very often was—but the genius straightened up and walked toward the entrance anyway. The liaison was standing in place by the door, tilting her head to the side and brushing her hands through her hair to release beads of water.

“Paige,” he said with a hint of surprise. “What are you doing here?”

The liaison finished squeezing out her hair onto the concrete floor and whipped her head back, her dark strands sticking against her flushed face. Walter noticed, for the first time, that she was soaked through—her jacket and sweater clung to her body, and her black boots squeaked when she moved. It wasn’t, if he was being honest, an unpleasant view, but he forced his eyes upward to meet hers. “Hey,” she said as she shook off her hands. “I’m just going to wait the storm out here, if that’s okay.”

“Of course,” Walter answered immediately before clearing his throat. A million things that he knew he should say or do sprang into his mind, but he struggled to prioritize them, so he asked, “Where’s Ralph?”

Paige rubbed her eyes and wiped away her streaked mascara. “With his sitter. I went out to dinner, but the storm got worse on my way home, and I was closer to here, so…” Her fingers tugged at the sleeves of her black trench coat, but the moisture caused the fabric to stick to her skin. “Can you help me with this?”

Walter nodded and circled behind her, clutching the collar of the coat and sliding it down over her shoulders. The sleeves were halfway off when his fingers grazed her upper arm and she tensed, causing him to stop abruptly, worried that he’d hurt her somehow. Paige didn’t acknowledge the reaction and simply stepped forward, letting the coat fall into his hands.

“So, um, dinner?” Walter stammered, reaching into the closet for a hanger and wrapping her jacket around it. “But not with Ralph?”

Paige turned around to face him and smirked. “I have other friends, you know.”

“Of course,” he mumbled, chancing a glance at her and looking away quickly as he realized her pink sweater was currently skimming her body in a way that would be impossible for any man not to notice. He felt a small sense of relief—and possibly, though he wouldn’t admit it, a larger sense of disappointment—when Paige crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back on her heels. Walter wondered if she was embarrassed to be exposed in front of him, or if she didn’t notice, or—worst for him—if she _did_ notice and was taking this opportunity to test her effect on him. “You just, uh, you never really talk about…anyone outside of the team.”

“I know.” Paige tightened her grip around herself and rubbed her arms, staring down at the floor. “It’s two different worlds. They’re hard to merge.”

Walter nodded, but he couldn’t really relate. Scorpion was his world. Even Ray, the one true friend he’d found outside of work, had been absorbed into the team and played a critical role in several of their cases. He always wanted to know more about Paige, more about her life outside the garage, but he knew as well as she did that meeting her friends over bowling or karaoke or whatever normals did in their spare time was unlikely to produce a desirable result.

Paige caught his eye and tilted the corner of her mouth up. “It’s not because I’m embarrassed by the team, or anything. Or by you,” she said, reading his insecurities plainly. “I’m not.”

“You’re shivering,” he noted to change the subject. She raised her eyebrows in surprise and increased the friction on her arms.

“I could use some dry clothes,” she conceded, glancing at the loft before looking back to him. “Do you have anything I can borrow?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Walter murmured. Paige…in his clothes…he took in a deep breath and shook away the thoughts that flooded his mind. It was an innocent request; there was nothing inherently intimate about her wearing scraps of cloth that he just happened to have worn previously. He repeated that thought to himself as he walked toward the stairs, motioning for the liaison to follow him.

Walter pushed open the bedroom door for her, feeling a spark of insecurity as she walked inside. She’d been in his room before, and there was nothing particularly embarrassing about his living space, but the closer he and Paige had become, the more sensitive he was to her opinions about nearly every aspect of his life. With her encouragement, he continued to open up new sides of himself to her, but deep down he worried that every new piece of information might change her too-optimistic opinion of him.

Paige knelt down and pulled out his bottom dresser drawer, finding a gray fleece pullover from a physics exhibit Walter had taken Ralph to and a pair of black sweatpants. There was something very…high school about her desire to inhale the fabric and capture his scent, a mix of chemicals, gasoline, and something vaguely woodsy that was undeniably him. She decided to speed up the process, sensing that Walter was nervous about having her in his personal space, and grabbed the clothes as she stood up.

The genius was startled when Paige wrapped her fingers around the hem of her pink sweater and pulled it over her head, leaving behind a pink camisole that would have been form-fitting on the best of days, but was much more so now. He choked a little and tried to play it off as an intentional cough. “You shouldn’t, um…” Walter stuttered as Paige reached for the pullover, averting his eyes and focusing on the wall behind her. “You shouldn’t keep any of your wet clothes on. It increases your likelihood of developing illnesses such as pneumonia by thirty-six percent.”

Paige cocked her head to the side. “Walter, it’s a tank top. I’ll be fine.”

Walter sighed and swung his eyes back to her, keeping his attention strictly above her neck, for his sake and hers. “You’re going to get sick,” he explained bluntly. His lips formed into a smile as he added, “And you know how you are when you’re sick.”

“Oh, shut up,” the woman snapped jokingly, rolling her eyes. The sneezing, the shakiness, the flat-out denial…sick Paige was the worst kind of Paige. He would still choose Paige at her worst over anyone else at their best, of course, but he chose not to verbalize that thought. “What?” she asked suddenly.

Walter glanced behind him and from side to side, wondering what he’d missed. “Nothing, why?”

“You were, um…” She let out a small laugh. “You were staring.”

“Oh,” the genius mumbled, embarrassed that he had been so obvious without even realizing it. It wouldn’t have been the first time that he’d lost track of reality while thinking about her, but he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Paige answered with an unaffected grin, twisting the gray sweatshirt in her hands. “Truthfully, I, um…I like the way you look at me. It’s been a long time since anyone’s looked at me that way.”

Walter felt heat creeping deep underneath his skin. He was a bit surprised by her confession, but he appreciated Paige’s honesty regarding her feelings; playing games was too stressful for him, and they’d already spent far too long backtracking and dropping vague hints about their attraction. “I doubt that,” he said under his breath, but the liaison heard and chuckled.

“You don’t see how women look at you, either,” she teased, scanning him up and down playfully. “You have a lot more going on than you realize, Walter.”

The genius’s skin burned. He didn’t have a good rebuttal—anything he said would make him sound insecure, overconfident, or entirely oblivious. Paige always knew how to render him speechless.

He stepped back as the liaison flipped her hair over, splashing water droplets in his direction, and gathered it in her hands. Walter understood the gesture and disappeared into his bathroom, returning with a black hair tie in his hand.

Paige accepted the offering and held it up between her fingers. “Where did you get this?”

“Happy left it here,” he replied simply, pushing his hands into his pockets. He congratulated himself internally for identifying and responding to Paige’s need, but the smile on his face faded when he saw the doubt in the liaison’s eyes. Walter ran through the possible causes of her reaction in his head, his eyes popping open when he realized the potential inference of his words. “She fixed my sink,” he explained hurriedly, relieved when Paige’s face relaxed and she shook her head.

“Right,” the woman said as she tied her hair into a messy ponytail, and Walter had to admit that although he didn’t want to give her any reason for suspicion, her spark of jealousy was somewhat endearing. “Well, thank you.”

“Sure.” An extended silence fell between them, and though Paige was clutching the dry clothes, she made no move to put them on. The genius dropped his eyes to the floor. “You should get changed. I’ll, uh, go downstairs and make some tea—.”

“Or…” Paige interrupted, her voice soft. She met his gaze and bit her bottom lip, letting the word hang in the air.

“Or?” he echoed, suddenly very uncertain about the direction their conversation was heading in. She took a step toward him until they were only a few inches apart, and tilted her head up.

“It’s just that, uh…” He noticed a flush spreading over her cheeks as well and held his breath as he waited for her to continue. “I have a feeling that once I change out of these clothes and into _this_ ,” she said, gesturing with his sweatshirt, “you won’t be looking at me like you are now, and, well, I was kind of enjoying that.”

Walter wanted to reassure her that she would look incredible in anything, but the words didn’t come. So he gave her what she wanted and allowed himself to admire her without holding back. He took in the golden flecks in her dark eyes, the curve of her cheekbones, the wet strands of hair that still clung to her face and neck. Whatever he’d been thinking about before she entered the garage that night was gone as her proximity quickly clouded his mind.

The genius swallowed hard as she grasped his hands and closed the minimal distance between them, pulling his arms around her and resting his palms against her lower back. She was trying to remove as much uncertainty from the moment as she could, but Walter still struggled to prepare for what he knew was coming. Her hands smoothed over his shoulders and hooked around his neck, her fingers grazing lightly over his skin.

“Paige,” he said in a low voice, but he didn’t move.

The liaison smiled, her eyes traveling over his face while her grip on him tightened. “I know you need to go slow, Walter, so…if you’re not ready for this, just tell me.”

“That’s not it.” He shifted his hand on her back, sliding her camisole up and making contact with a patch of her still-damp skin. The genius attributed her slight shiver to the cold air before realizing that it was his doing. “I just…I can’t anticipate how things will change once this happens, and I don’t want to, uh, disappoint you.”

“You won’t,” Paige said confidently, training her eyes on his. “I’m not expecting all the answers, Walter. I just want to share this moment with you.”

“Okay,” he breathed. She slid her hands over the base of his neck and tangled them into his hair, leaning up slightly to align her face with his.

“You always want to take care of me,” Paige whispered, earning a weak nod from Walter. “So take care of me,” she mumbled. He met her the rest of the way and captured her lips, his hands involuntarily gripping the wet material on her back. The genius had been putting off their first—well, second—kiss for weeks, worried that she would develop expectations he wasn’t sure he was ready to meet. But it was all excuses, and holding her, feeling her palms skim over his shirt, her lips forcefully meeting his, made him regret waiting so long.

Paige smiled into the kiss and Walter drew her closer to him, thinking about what a shame it would have been if something had happened to him on a mission before he’d ever gotten the chance to be with her like this. So many opportunities missed, so much time wasted—that needed to change.

When the need for air became too much, Paige pulled back and collapsed against him with a breathy laugh. He found himself absentmindedly rubbing his hand along the middle of her back, ignoring the fact that his shirt had become nearly as soaked as hers. “That was…good,” she muttered into his shoulder, her arms circling around him before she caught his eyes. “How do you feel?”

“Good,” Walter answered honestly, and Paige relaxed when she saw whatever confirmation she was looking for in his eyes. “So what now?”

“Now…well, it’s still raining,” she shrugged as she motioned to the window. “I don’t know. Maybe we can make some coffee and watch a movie?”

“I can handle that.” Exhaling deeply, Walter released her from his grip and pointed to the clothes that had dropped the floor at some point during Paige’s seduction. “But we both need to change first. You’ve already been wearing that shirt for too long.”

“Still trying to get me out of my clothes,” the liaison joked, gathering the sweatshirt and pants into her arms. “Fine. But at least pretend that I still look good in these, okay?”

The genius grinned. “Trust me, I won’t need to.”


	15. Storm

Paige tapped her finger on the edge of her mug, listening to the steady rhythm of the rain as it trickled against her window. She'd tried to watch TV, but it was Friday night and there was nothing on but Lifetime movies and specials about aliens, and besides, she thought it was best to give Ralph quiet so he could sleep. She picked up a book, and then a magazine, and then her phone, but nothing held her interest. Her head was somewhere else, but she knew that if she let her mind wander where it truly wanted to go, heading into work on Monday was going to be a great deal more difficult.

The liaison took the last sip of her tea and stretched out across the couch, propping her feet up on the arm and adjusting a pillow under her head. A good night's sleep was her best option on all fronts, but for some reason, she didn't feel inclined to return to her too-quiet bedroom. Her eyes started to slide shut and her thoughts slowed before…

A knock on the door. "Paige?"

She bolted upright, more than a little surprised to hear Walter's voice. Paige scrambled off the couch, pausing at the mirror to smooth out her hair and pull down the hem of her T-shirt, and slid open the latch on the door. The genius was leaning one hand against the wall and smiled when he saw her. "Hi."

"Hi," Paige answered, her initial panic that something was wrong tempered by his seemingly calm demeanor. "What are you doing here?"

"I came by to see Ralph. I hope you don't mind." Walter shuffled his feet, and the sound of water in his shoes drew her attention. He followed her gaze and looked down sheepishly. "I got caught in the storm on my way back from the research lab. I don't want to get your carpet wet—."

"Please, it's fine," she interrupted, moving aside to let him in. Caught in the storm was an understatement—he looked like he'd been standing in the rain for hours. And while Paige was far from oblivious about Walter's attractiveness, the wet fabric clinging to his arms, chest, and legs was giving her a much better picture than she had anticipated. It was just like Cuba, but without the imminent threat of foreign imprisonment.

"Where's Ralph?"

Paige snapped her eyes up and cleared her throat. "Ralph," she said slowly, taking a second to close the door behind her so she could get her mind out of the gutter. "He's resting right now. I think he has a cold."

Walter's expression immediately clouded with concern. "What are his symptoms? Has he—."

"He's fine, Walter," the liaison assured him, smiling at his protectiveness. Very few people had ever shown the level of interest in and kindness toward her son that Walter did, and there was certainly no one who understood him better. "He just needs to sleep it off."

The genius's body relaxed, and Paige once again reminded herself to keep her eyes on his. He'd come to see Ralph…he wasn't even there for her.

That last thought disappointed her more than she cared to admit.

"Well, um…" Walter shook her out of her musing. "I'll just head back to the garage then. Ralph and I can talk when he's feeling better."

"You don't have to," Paige offered tentatively. She found herself dreading the idea of him leaving so soon, now that he'd blown into her apartment looking like _that_ and it was highly unlikely that she'd be able to relax after he was gone.

Walter raised his eyebrow.

"It's not safe for you to drive out there," she explained, though whether he bought her reasoning was debatable. "Especially not in your car."

"There's nothing wrong with my car," the genius argued indignantly.

"Sure." She took a step in his direction and gently tugged on the sleeve of his saturated shirt, pretending not to notice his subtle shifting. "Come on, you're drenched. You're going to get sick."

"Oh no, I don't get sick," Walter replied matter-of-factly.

"Do you mean that, or is it just part of your Superman complex?"

He smirked. "Have you ever seen me sick?"

"Good point." Paige pulled back and crossed her arms in front of her. "But I'd still feel better if you waited out the rain here. I can give you some dry clothes and maybe make some soup or something. When was the last time you ate?"

Walter stayed silent for a moment, ignoring her question. "You want me to stay?" he asked finally, the uncertainty in his voice sending a chill through Paige.

"Yes," she admitted, a little more softly and honesty than she'd meant to. The liaison took a deep breath to calm the embarrassing beating in her chest. "Come on, I'll find you something."

Walter followed Paige through the open door to her bedroom, and she snapped at herself to keep it together. She'd spent so much time in the garage—in his home—but he had spent relatively little time in her apartment since they met, and virtually none in her personal space. That wasn't to say she hadn't envisioned it, of course, but he didn't need to know that. She dug around in the back of her closet, trying not to focus on the way that she knew Walter was watching her, until she found a cardboard box and pulled it open.

"Here," she said, handing him a blue crew-neck shirt and a pair of faded gray sweatpants. "These should fit."

Walter accepted the clothes and stared at them in his hands. Paige shoved the box back and stood, studying his reaction. "They're not Drew's, if you were wondering."

He coughed and glanced up at her. "It's none of my business," he answered quickly.

Paige cringed inwardly at the words, an echo of what she said after Walter woke up hungover in his hotel with cheap perfume on his sheets. She hadn't met what she said then, and she had an inkling that he didn't now. "It is if you want it to be, Walter." The liaison crossed over to him and unfolded the shirt, pointing to a white logo on the back. "Dineen's Plumbing and Repairs. It was my dad's business. This is all his stuff."

"Oh." She could sense the hint of relief in his voice, even though he tried to hide it. "I'll just, uh, change in the bathroom."

Even though Paige knew it was in his best interests, she was disappointed for him to lose the wet clothes…but she could at least play a part in it. Acting on pure impulse, the liaison set the dry items on the dresser and reached for his button-down shirt, sliding her finger over the top button before unfastening it and moving to the second one.

Walter stiffened. "What are you doing?"

"Wet clothes are hard to get off. I'm giving you a hand," she said evenly, attempting to make it sound like a practical decision rather than a result of her irrational need to be closer to him. Paige loosened the third button and suppressed a smile as Walter's breath hitched.

"I can unbutton my own shirt," he said in a strained voice. When she ignored him and moved lower, he added, "This is highly inefficient."

The woman paused and looked up at him, allowing a small grin to reach her lips. "Sometimes inefficient can be fun, Walter."

His eyes flashed, and Paige thought she had pushed too far, but he didn't move. She hesitated for a second before grazing the next button, causing Walter to shift but not to pull away. Every nerve in her body was electrified as the liaison continued her work, feeling his gaze burn through her even though she couldn't bring herself to meet it. She reluctantly undid the last clasp before circling around to the other side and peeling the soaked fabric off of his shoulders and down his arms. Both were aware that Paige was taking much longer than strictly necessary, but he said nothing as she admired the definition of his muscles, which—while not the reason she'd fallen for him—were certainly not a disadvantage.

She draped his shirt over the back of a chair and headed toward the door. "You can change in here. I'll make hot chocolate."

* * *

Paige stood in front of the kettle, inhaling deeply as she tried to recover from her intense moment with Walter. She cursed herself for allowing things to go too far. He was her boss, her friend, and she'd agreed to be patient. But she couldn't hold back, and if she had exceeded the limits of what he could handle, the cost could be all the progress they'd already made.

She heard a door crack open and turned off the stovetop heat. When Walter didn't join her in the kitchen, Paige peeked around the wall and saw the genius leaning against the doorway of Ralph's room, watching the sleeping boy.

Walter glanced down at her as she stood next to him. "Thank you for the clothes."

"You're welcome," she whispered, unnerved by the calmness in his voice when she felt like a chaotic bundle of nerves. He shifted his weight and Paige noticed that he was clutching something in his hand. "What's that?"

Paige felt the color drain out of her face as he held it up to the light. Had she really been so distracted by Walter's stupid shirt that she'd forgotten to hide it? "I thought you could tell me."

The liaison took the photograph from his hands and studied it, feeling the blood rush back to her cheeks in full force. Her, Ralph, and Walter playing video games on the couch after school, nearly a year earlier. Toby snapped the picture and sent it to her, and she instantly knew why. She'd kept the photo near her bed and stared at it often. The way that Walter had looked at her in that moment…no matter what happened between them, no longer how long Paige had to wait, that look gave her hope that they would make it work someday.

"It was, um…a nice memory." Paige shook her head and slipped into her bedroom, throwing the photo on the dresser before coming back out into the hallway. Walter seemed to be watching every move she made, but she was too nervous to meet his eyes. "I'll get your drink."

She disappeared back into the kitchen and unscrewed the cap on a bottle of Kahlua, dumping a shot of it into her hot chocolate and leaving the other one untouched. She knew Walter wouldn't accept the alcohol but man, did she need it right now. The genius shut the door to Ralph's room before settling onto the couch, feet resting on the matching ottoman.

Paige handed him a mug and sat, leaving a respectable distance between them. She hardly ever saw him dressed down, but the shirt and sweatpants fit him well—annoyingly so—and made him seem more relaxed than usual. There was a tingling sensation in her fingers as she remembered the feel of his skin under hers, and she forced herself to push the thought down.

To her surprise, it was Walter who broke the silence. "It's a nice picture."

She took a long sip of her spiked hot chocolate and sighed. "I know you don't understand sentimentality, I just thought—."

"Paige," he interrupted, resting his cup down and focusing his attention on her. "I'm not being sarcastic. I just meant it was nice."

"Oh." Sometimes she forgot how far Walter had come in many ways. He'd always meant well, always treated her with respect even when he didn't understand her viewpoint, and it was only in her head to feel simple-minded around him. "Ralph really loves spending time with you."

"Right. Ralph."

There was something hollow in Walter's voice, and Paige glanced over him. He was staring into his mug, his eyebrows knitted together, deep in thought. She suddenly realized that she was doing exactly what she'd done after he canceled their Valentine's Day dinner, after their first kiss—beating around the bush, saying things she only meant halfway or not at all, avoiding the words she really needed to express.

"And me." Paige cleared her throat. "I do too."

The genius's eyes locked on her, the same dark glint in them as when she'd taken off his shirt. She opened her mouth to gloss over the words, smooth the moment like she always did, but suddenly Walter had her pinned to the couch, his lips pressed against hers urgently. Her mind was blank, so she ignored logic and the impulse to breathe and wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing him closer. One hand steadied himself on the couch while the other traveled up her side, tickling her burning skin, and his shoulders and back contracted as her palms skimmed over them. She'd given him time, but now that she had him in her grasp, Paige couldn't imagine how she had waited so long. If this was the only moment she got, she was going to make the most of it.

His lips traveled to her neck and she grabbed at his shirt, wanting more of what she'd gotten a taste of earlier. Paige used a split second of separation to yank the fabric over his head and rest her hands on his chest, feeling something like relief at finally being so close to him. She shut her eyes, trying to memorize every overwhelming sensation as his hand twisted in her hair and he met her lips again.

She didn't know how long Walter had been kissing her when he broke away, maintaining his position over her. Paige wrapped her hands around his arms for stability—his or hers, she wasn't sure—and dropped her head back onto the pillow. "Whoa."

"Agreed," the genius laughed, sounding as out of breath as she felt. He swallowed and met her eyes. "That photo, it just made me think how long…how long I've been…"

"I know," Paige cut him off, moving one palm up to touch his cheek. "You are worth waiting for, Walter."

The corner of his mouth lifted.

"I was…" She could swear her heart was pounding so loudly that it would break her. "I was worried that I might have pushed you too much. That you might…get nervous and distance yourself from me."

Walter stared at her intently before leaning down and kissing her again, sending a flood of warmth through her. "I need you to push me. That's how we change. By being pushed out of our comfort zones." The genius brushed a stray piece of hair away from Paige's face. "I'll tell you when it's too much."

"Okay." Feeling like they'd said all they needed to say, Paige arched up and captured his lips, gripping the back of his neck to keep him connected to her.

He didn't complain.


	16. Acceptance

"How do I get this out of my hair?" Paige asked with a hint of disgust as she lifted the highlighted strands away from her face, squeezing them with her hands to remove excess ballistic gel. The blast-absorbing mixture turned craft project component was everywhere in the garage…floors, walls, desks, phones. She wondered how long it might be before she could touch a surface in the office and not come in contact with a handful of iridescent slime.

"Well, I'm not sure how you got it in your hair, so…" Walter caught Paige's glare and shoved his hands into his pockets, turning his attention to the ground. "I can make a chemical mixture for you that will break down the gel. You can mix it into your shampoo when you shower."

Paige raised an eyebrow at him, but her mask of annoyance faded almost unwillingly into an amused smirk. "Is it going to burn my scalp off?"

"Unlikely." The genius rocked back onto his heels casually until he saw her eyes widen and hastily added, "By which I mean, no."

"Okay," Paige said, unconvinced. She put her life at the mercy of Walter's mad genius experiments all the time, but when the options were limited to one of his improbable plans or certain death, she was willing to take her chances. In less harrowing circumstances, though, Paige had to admit that the geniuses' creations tended to freak her out a little. "So, uh," the liaison cleared her throat. "Today was pretty wild."

"Yeah," Walter said slowly, his eyes traveling to the shattered remains of the Plexiglas case that could very well have been a coffin, had things gone a bit differently. Paige swallowed at the memory of him climbing into that box with Linda. It was reckless and stupid…at least, she told herself that's why it bothered her so much.

She didn't quite want to admit that she was jealous of Walter jumping into the fray to save Linda.

Paige wasn't exactly pleased when he'd risked his life—on more than one occasion—to save her, either, but…it gave her a sort of strength in tough situations, knowing that he'd do anything for her. She'd imagined, perhaps naively, that it hinted at a devotion to her that he wasn't able to express with words. But it was clear after today that he would do it for anyone.

And it was unbelievably selfish to expect anything else from him.

Wanting to lighten the mood, or at least distract herself temporarily from her too-serious thoughts, Paige picked up one of the papier-mâché figures and turned it over in her hand. She and Ralph had watched by Walter's side as the figures dried in the kiln and came out with a shiny, deep blue glaze over them. Ralph fell asleep on the couch somewhere around the tenth time and showed no signs of stirring. "It's beautiful," she noted quietly, running her thumb over the smooth surface before lifting her eyes to meet Walter's. "It's interesting that you wanted to make these."

"Why?"

"Because it's art," she offered, cracking a smile. "You created something that had no real function other than to be beautiful."

Walter scoffed before crossing his arms over his chest defensively. "It's science. I'm sure Ralph could detail for you the fascinating chemical reactions that result in—."

"They're not mutually exclusive, Walter," the liaison laughed. She held the project up between her fingers and pointed it toward the genius. "Everything in the world can be viewed through different angles. Hundreds, sometimes thousands. And, well…it's good, that people all see things differently. It's what makes the world run the way it does."

"The world runs the way it does because of physics," he rebutted, scrunching up his face like he always did when he was confused. It was a look she had grown more than accustomed to.

"That too," Paige conceded, placing the papier-mâché back on the table. Silence filled the space between them, and her gaze traveled unconsciously to her son, curled up on his side, clutching a thick green blanket. She chanced a glance at Walter and smiled when she realized that he was watching the boy too.

"I used to wish that everyone was like me," Walter announced after a moment. Paige propped herself up against the desk and turned her attention to him, but he was still focused on Ralph. "Partly because we could accomplish so much without being weighed down by the petty formalities between Normals, and partly…"

He trailed off, but Paige had a pretty good idea where he was heading. "So you could understand each other?"

"Yes," he answered distantly. "Everyone would be on the same level. I wouldn't stand out as so…well, weird."

The liaison shook her head fervently. "Walter, I just told you—."

"That weird is good. I know." He finally dragged his eyes back to hers, tightening his arms in front of him in what was probably a subconscious attempt at distance, if she analyzed it like Toby. She wished that he didn't feel the need to keep himself so far away from her. "Lately, I've been…" Walter let out a heavy breath and tried again. "I've been trying to understand why the things that…"

His tongue tripped over the words, and Paige wondered what he could be trying to say that required this much effort. She cleared her throat to bring him out of his thoughts. "Walter…"

"I want to understand you," he said in the same breath, his eyes flicking to hers for only a second before landing somewhere near his feet. Paige abruptly shut her mouth and waited for him to elaborate. "You're a Normal, and yet you're not…bothered…by us the way most people are. You understand us. You accept us." He paused before straightening up and meeting her curious gaze. "You accept me."

Paige couldn't pinpoint the origin of this sudden epiphany, but she decided to play along and let him reveal his motives in his own time. "Of course I do. The team is amazing," she started, but Walter didn't respond, so she pressed on. "It wouldn't be a bad thing if everyone was like you, you know. You're a good person. Selfless. And brave. Maybe a little too brave," she laughed uneasily, flashing back to his earlier near-death experience—one of many, and yet somehow a little too close for comfort.

"Acceptance isn't everything, Walter. We all crave it, trust me, but you should never have to become anyone else to get it. There will always be people who dismiss you, but…" She took a hesitant step forward to close the distance, stopping just short of the minimum amount of space she knew Walter needed. "But there will also always be people who accept and respect you for who you are. People who want you to be a part of their lives." Her point was made, but rebelling against the voice in her head that told her to shut up and step back, she moved an inch closer to Walter and said, too quietly to sound normal, "There are people that love you."

He stood perfectly still, and Paige chastised herself for playing a game she knew she was bound to lose, just like she'd lost countless times before: after the satellite, after the submarine, after the dam. One step forward, ten steps back, better to avoid it altogether and expect nothing. But that look—the look he'd given her earlier, as he cleaned up the gel with Ralph—had stirred up all the things she worked to suppress.

"I just…I don't understand why," Walter said in a low voice, surprising Paige since she'd given up on expecting a reply. She shifted her weight but didn't move. "There's no formula that explains why you and I…connect," he continued uncertainly, "when I'm not able to connect with others. You are different, somehow, and I want to understand why, but I haven't figured it out yet."

The liaison waited to make sure he was finished and leaned forward slightly, now within arm's reach of Walter. She'd tried so hard to help him grow, help him reach out, but an irrational twinge of jealousy struck her now that he'd made it clear their connection wasn't enough. Obviously it wasn't enough. That's why he'd gone out with Linda and those other women in the first place.

"Does it matter?" she asked softly. "Sometimes connections are unpredictable. There's no magic formula to make other people accept you—."

"That's not what I meant," the genius interrupted, swallowing the last word. He inhaled to brace himself before explaining, "If I don't understand why these connections happen, then I'm not sure how to…maintain them."

Paige blinked. "I'm not sure I follow."

"I could lose them," Walter explained more abruptly, and Paige's breath caught in her chest at the uncertainly of his tone. "Right? If I can't figure out why certain people accept me and others don't, then I'm always at risk of doing the wrong thing and ruining the relationships that are successful. That's why I need to understand."

Paige let out a deep sigh and ran her hand through her hair, barely noticing this time when she came in contact with the slippery gel. She wished she had a better answer for the genius, but only facts would satisfy him, and the facts were inseparable from emotions that he still struggled to understand and process.

"You can't," came her eventual reply. "Any of us can lose someone we love at any time, Walter, for a million different reasons. No matter what we do. I think you know that."

The storm that brewed in his eyes told her he did, but that was no shock. Cabe had accepted Walter as his own son, but a single mistake fractured their relationship for more than a decade. And Megan, the one person who had always seen Walter exactly as he was—the most important person in his life, as he'd called her—was taken away by a force none of them could control.

"But that shouldn't stop you," Paige said firmly, finally crossing that last step she'd been dying to take and placing her hand on his arm, barely applying pressure. She knew that he was watching her expectantly, but she didn't look up. "True acceptance—the kind that we only get a few times in our lives—means that even when you make mistakes, that person doesn't give up on you. If you're worried about doing the wrong things, Walter, you already have. So have I. So have all of us. And despite that, you still have a family here."

Walter took time to think about her answer. She expected him to grow uncomfortable with her prolonged physical contact, but he stayed rooted in his spot, giving no indication that he wanted or needed to move away. In fact, it was the steady conviction in his voice that finally pushed her to meet his eyes again.

"I'm happy," Walter said simply. "I don't like the idea that I could…lose that."

The corner of Paige's lips tilted up. "You won't." She let her hand sink down on his arm, curling her fingers around his rolled-up shirt sleeve. "We may not be able to hold on to things forever, Walter, but some things last just short of that. We have them for long enough."

The genius studied her intently before she felt unexpected heat hit her skin and glanced down to see his hand covering hers. "I hope so," he murmured, and maybe in the morning she would go back to telling herself that he was talking about the team, about Scorpion, about his family.

But in that moment, she had no doubt what he meant, and she smiled. "So do I."


	17. Better

Is she better off?

It's the question Walter's asked himself a million and one times, and it's the first question that comes to his mind when Tim strides in the door of the garage and looks at Paige _that way_.

The genius knows he's screwed up badly, let the train cars get too far away from each other even though he swore that he wouldn't. He doesn't know why he keeps disappearing when things get intense, even though he knows that geniuses are different, and just like Toby with Happy, and Sylvester with Megan, he's probably made his choice for life and will fall apart if Paige ever leaves. He doesn't like to admit that, but being with Scorpion has taught him a lot about himself, not all of it complimentary, and he can no longer think of himself as the invincible hero, above the fray and unaffected by petty emotions.

Walter always figured he'll tell Paige one day, one day when he's a better version of himself and he can do this without it blowing up in his face. They're confronted with death constantly, but every day that she's there, at the garage, he feels like there will always be enough time. It's objectively untrue, but he is excellent at lying to himself…or, he was, until Cabe's hotshot trainee appeared and reminded him that he's always one coffee date away from missing his chance forever.

Monday—the first day Tim works with the team—is also the first time that he saves Paige's life and touches her shoulder. Those two actions aren't even remotely equal, and Walter certainly can't begrudge him for saving her, but he's fixated by that small action and the sickening jealousy it stirs up in him. Tuesday is the first time he brings her coffee—with cinnamon, because he knows she likes it. Wednesday he gives her a CD from an artist they both like, who Walter has obviously never heard of, and he finds himself, almost subconsciously, rating the smile she gives Tim against the ones he's seen on her before. Thursday he tells her a story about his past, and she listens intently, and the genius realizes that he only ever talks about his past when bad things are happening and he's about to break, can't hold it in anymore. Friday is when Ralph drops by the garage and Tim meets him for the first time, and Walter kicks himself for wanting Ralph to dislike him, because this isn't a competition. But it is, and he bites back a smirk when the boy introduces himself to Tim and then promptly leaves to play Proton Arnold.

Saturday is when he overhears Tim ask Paige out to dinner, and it makes his stomach burn and his skin crawl, and if he had just stuck to his guns about Happy and Toby, he could walk in there and break it up, citing Scorpion's strict fraternization rule. Paige says _this was a busy week and maybe when things calm down_ , and Walter feels a miniscule amount of relief at that, since nothing ever calms down for them.

When Paige leaves the garage that night, Walter wants to say something but his mouth is dry and the words catch in his throat. He looks up and gives her a brief nod, and he knows that he's coming off as indifferent and what is Paige supposed to think? She's already waited a long time, and he doubts that he's worth waiting for much longer, not when she's young and beautiful and deserving of all the attention in the world.

So, is she better off? He fights against turning it into a chart, but that's exactly what he does in his head, listing all the things that Tim can give her that Walter can't, and vice versa. There's small things, like the music; it's not exactly the deciding factor in a relationship, but music is immensely important to Paige, and he's never quite been able to match her enthusiasm about it. And Tim understands her needs, picks up on things about her in a week that took Walter years and displays it confidently instead of hiding behind a lavender diffuser and pretending that he just suddenly really, really likes the scent.

Tim's not as good with Ralph, but it's unlikely he ever will be. Walter and Ralph's connection can't be matched, and the genius is grateful for at least that. But the trainee can open up about himself—finds Paige important enough to tell even the hard parts to—and realized that she was worth pursuing in six days, when it's taken Walter two years to get out of his own way, because he sees no future that doesn't involve him hurting her.

The column is becoming heavily tilted in Tim's favor, especially considering his willingness to risk himself for her, and Walter struggles to even it out but his mind goes blank.

So on Sunday, when he and Paige are finally alone in the garage, the genius tells himself that if she asks for his opinion of Tim, he'll be supportive. It seems like the only fair option, after the admittedly immature way he's handled much of their relationship, and the words are on his tongue but she glances over at him and smiles, and he knows that what comes out instead is what he's really wanted to say the whole time. "The answer is no."

Most people would press for details, but Paige just shrugs and asks, "The answer to what?"

She thinks he's talking about a math problem, but this is so much more important. They'd be here forever if he tried to explain everything he's felt over the past week, every punch in the gut he suffers when Tim makes her laugh, every time he wishes that he could just say the words and the fear would dissipate and there would finally, _finally_ , be nothing standing between them.

But who needs words, anyway, when there's a corresponding action for just about everything? So Walter stands up and shoves his chair out of the way, approaching her more carefully than he wants to but less than he should, and when she furrows her eyebrow questioningly, he inhales the deepest breath he can, wraps his fingers in her hair and presses his lips to hers. He's never been with her like this, not really, never been able to touch her like this, and all of his concerns about her reaction fade when her arms grasp at his back and pull him closer.

Paige doesn't have to hesitate, because Walter can't possibly know this, but she's been wondering the same question as him. She tried to see the problems, the risks—and she does, but they're so overshadowed by every look he's thrown her way, every time he's taken care of her, every time he's risked all that he has and is for her, that those problems don't scare her at all, and the answer to the question is, and will always be, no.

She isn't.


	18. Going Down

"I just think that if we—."

"My plan is fine without your input," Walter snapped, not bothering to lift his eyes from his laptop. Tim held up his hands in surrender and stepped back, sending an exasperated glance to Cabe that did not go unnoticed by the rest of the team.

"Walter…" Paige warned under her breath, stepping closer until she was hovering behind his shoulder. "He's trying to help."

Walter went rigid. Tim may have charmed his way into Scorpion, but he wasn't one of them. He was a glorified intern passing by on his way to another assignment, and if he knew what was good for him, he would shut up and take his orders from people with vastly higher IQs than his.

"If we need to shoot somebody, we'll know who to call," the genius rebutted, making no attempt to lower his voice. "Until then, I have this under control."

A chill wracked Paige's spine. Nothing about Walter was currently reading "under control," and it hadn't in the nearly three weeks since Tim arrived at the garage. Toby suggested to her that Walter might have some daddy issues regarding Cabe, but whatever bitter emotion was bringing out the worst in him was threatening the harmony of the team and getting old, fast. She glanced helplessly at the shrink, who just shrugged and gave her a knowing look.

"Clearly," the liaison muttered under her breath, shaking her head apologetically to Tim as Walter barked orders to the geniuses, who went scrambling.

After they saved the world, she was going to end this.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Walter seemed to snap out of his daze as Paige wrapped her hand around his arm and yanked him toward the elevator. She'd threatened the rest of the team, on pain of death or at least extra paperwork, to find another way down. Hell, they could rappel the fourteen stories if they wanted to, as long as they stayed out of her way.

"Just get in the elevator, Walter," Paige sighed, waiting for the doors to slide open and ushering him inside. She pressed the button for the lobby and stayed silent as the lift clanked shut behind her.

"Where's the rest of the team?"

"They'll meet us at the garage," she answered in a clipped voice, tapping her foot expectantly as the floor counter clicked down. When she was satisfied that they were between floors, she pressed the emergency stop button and spun around, ignoring the dull ringing of the alarm. "That gives us about five minutes, right?"

"Paige, you're acting strangely." He approached her and reached around to release the button, but she stepped sideways and blocked his access. His eyebrow furrowed. "I don't understand."

She tried to take a deep breath, but her heart was racing too fast and it amounted to nothing more than a shallow gasp for air. She'd meant to approach this calmly, but a month's worth of tense missions, complaints from the geniuses, and her own personal grievances were pushing at her chest and begging to be released. "We need to talk, and I don't want the rest of the team involved."

Walter squinted before pointing up to the security camera in the corner. "They can easily hack into that feed—."

"Why are you acting like this?" Paige snapped, not waiting for the rest of his explanation. "God, Walter, I know you have an ego, and that you don't handle change well, but your behavior has been…" She exhaled deeply. "Next level, even for you."

Surprise registered in his eyes, but he pressed his lips together, unwilling or unable in the moment to respond.

"I've never seen you like this," Paige continued, having anticipated a similar reaction. She crossed her arms in front of her, leaning her weight hard against the wall. "Clearly you don't like Tim, but he's sticking around for a while, so you need to pull it together before this team implodes. Again."

Walter blinked. Paige nodded her head in resignation; he'd already shut down, and there would be no getting answers from him now. She prepared to press the button and get them the hell out of there when his even voice cut through the din.

"Tim is not an asset to the team. He is…" The genius cleared his throat. "Unprofessional."

The liaison eased her hand off the control panel and glanced sharply at him. "What?"

"The way he acts around you is unprofessional," Walter announced more clearly, catching her gaze and returning it with an intensity that always made her burn. "The way he looks at you is…." He let out a low noise, almost like a growl. "He is a distraction to the team."

_Distraction._ He'd worn that term thin. Every feeling, every want, every personal connection was a distraction. She was a distraction, he'd told her in so many words. Paige had agreed at the time, but now that word fueled the fire in her blood.

"To the team, or to you?" she pushed. Her instincts told her that she was entering dangerous waters, but she was so _tired_ of walking on eggshells around him, holding back her emotions to avoid making things awkward between them.

_Let them be awkward,_ she thought. _Aren't they already?_

"I'm sorry?"

"Is it so awful for someone to flirt with me, Walter? For someone to—" Paige realized how closely her words mirrored an argument they'd once had, and she tried to choke down the rest of the sentence, but it slipped out despite her efforts. "To want me for a change?"

A brief flash of hurt flickered across his face. "You think that I don't…" He let the question hang in the air before he did what she couldn't, and swallowed it. "It's bad for the team."

"The team, right," she repeated hollowly, shrugging her shoulders. "Because heaven forbid you care about anything for yourself."

She wanted him to be angry, as angry as she was, because then there could be a reason for her anger and she wouldn't feel so much like she was losing control. But he only sounded defeated. "Paige, I don't know what you want me to say."

"I want you to tell me what's going on!" the liaison argued as she pushed herself away from the side of the elevator, her volume rising on every syllable. "I want you to tell me why you can't work with Tim, and then I want you to tell me how to fix it, because I swear that if things keep going like this, we're all going to murder you in your sleep."

"You almost got shot, Paige. Because of him—."

" _What?_ " Paige asked in disbelief. "That's ridiculous. Tim protected me from that bullet."

"I should have protected you!" he shouted, stiffening suddenly as though he'd said something he didn't know how to take back. Paige's breath hitched as she caught a hint of fear in his eyes that hadn't been there before—fear she recognized because she'd felt it too, more than once, as she stood by helplessly while Walter's life was in danger.

"That's what this is about?" Her voice sounded so weak now without the venom she'd dumped into it. "Walter, that's not Tim's fault, and there's nothing you could have done. Logically, you have to know that."

"Except I can't think logically when you're involved," Walter rebutted, shoving his hands into his pockets and directing his gaze to the floor. Paige was glued to her spot, her heartbeat flooding her ears and making it difficult to hear his next words clearly, though she desperately wanted to. "This is the exact reason that I told you our feelings were destabilizing. Maybe yours aren't, but mine are. The efficient solution was to overcome them, but even after two years I can't—."

Walter wasn't aware of Paige approaching him until his back hit the cold wood and her body pinned him there. Everything seemed to change all at once as Paige's lips melted into his and her legs wrapped haphazardly around his waist; his first instinct was to support her, and the liaison gasped into the kiss as his hands snaked under her thighs, dragging her closer to him. Frustrated with his limited ability to touch her, Walter flipped their positions and pressed her against the wall, propping her on the railing so his hands could travel along her sides, feeling her heated skin through the fabric of her shirt, up to her face, her hair, anything and everything that was _her_.

They were acting on adrenaline, he knew, and when the high faded they'd both be shocked, and she might still be angry. But he wouldn't regret it, because there was no way of being with Paige that could ever feel wrong.

The floor shifted without warning under Walter's feet, and he grasped the railing to stabilize them. She pulled back and looked at him with wide eyes until the realization that the elevator was moving hit her, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder, her face buried in his shirt as she fought to catch her breath.

"Time's up," the genius muttered quietly in her ear, brushing a section of dark hair away from her neck. Paige nodded against his skin and cooperated reluctantly as he grabbed her waist and lowered her onto the ground.

She took a second to stretch her legs, keeping her arm hooked around his neck until she felt steady enough to stand. The genius found himself frustrated that he couldn't read her and overcome by the need for some indication that she was okay. He inched his palm further up her side, which had the desired effect of causing her to look up at him. "I'm sorry, Paige."

Those words didn't even begin to cover everything he needed to express, but he felt a spark of relief as Paige reached between them and grasped his hand in hers, squeezing it reassuringly. "I know."


	19. Going Up

_He's cute when he nerds out._

Paige rolled her eyes at her own frivolous thoughts as Walter explained, in an absurd level of detail, his most recent experiments with Cabe Jr. Though she understood very little of his rambling, the liaison always enjoyed watching the geniuses when they were particularly passionate about something.

"…and I think by tomorrow I can get him to go down the slide on his own." Walter flicked his eyes up to hers. "Maybe if you're there to calm him down, he'll be more…cooperative?"

She realized a second too late that he'd asked her a question—well, with Walter, it was always more of a statement that he expected her to agree or disagree with—and snapped out of her reverie, offering him a brief smile. "Sure."

"I don't know why he responds so much better to you," the genius muttered, calling for the elevator again even though the icon was already lit.

"Because I don't yell at him," she responded as it dinged to a stop in front of them and she stepped in, making sure Walter was through the door before pressing the button for the lobby. "Most living creatures respond to kindness and tact."

Walter squinted. "But he's a rat."

"And he has a brain, which means he has thoughts and feelings. You treat Ferret Bueller that way, so what's the difference?"

"I…" He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, thinking for a moment before he shrugged. "I don't know, actually."

"Exactly. What you need to—." Paige's words died out abruptly as the floor seemed to shift under them and she and Walter reached out instinctively to grab the railing. She felt her stomach flip as they dropped several inches and then stopped sharply, causing her to lurch forward and straight into him.

"You okay?" Walter asked, and Paige blushed slightly as she realized that his arm was wrapped around her waist to prevent her from faceplanting. He appeared to take note of her embarrassment and drew back quickly, clearing his throat.

"Uh…I'm fine, thanks," she recovered, straightening up and smoothing her shirt. "What was that?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say one of the cables jammed." He buzzed the help button and held up one finger to indicate that Paige should wait—as if there was anywhere for her to go—but his features scrunched in confusion when there was only silence on the other end. "That's not good."

"Maybe the security guy is on a break?" Paige suggested.

"No, the emergency button usually links to a 24-hour call center. If there's no answer, it's probably broken." The genius sighed and furrowed his brow as he thought. "If I can get into the control panel—."

"Walter, it's fine. I'm sure the maintenance guys will be here soon," she insisted, sliding down to the floor and stretching out her legs to demonstrate that she was willing to wait.

"But we could be stuck here—."

"Walter," the liaison said more firmly, grabbing his attention. "We've had a long day. I'm tired. Can we just let the building staff handle it, please?"

He kicked himself for allowing the team to head out before them—Happy would likely have climbed halfway up the cable by now to fix the issue—but there was nothing left to do after they'd wrapped up the job except fill out some paperwork, and Toby complained loudly about his need for a cheeseburger until Walter sent them all home.

Paige didn't seem to be in the mood for a discussion, so he caved and slumped down against the wall opposite her. "Okay."

"Thank you." She tipped her head back and relaxed, shifting to find a comfortable position against the wood paneling. Although she tried to disguise it in her voice, she felt a small thrill at the idea of spending time alone with Walter, however brief that time might be. Paige wondered precisely how pathetic that made her, still craving his presence when all he'd done for months was push her farther away. "Tell me about Cabe Jr.'s slide."

* * *

"It's been forty-five minutes," Walter grumbled, lifting his wrist to glance at his watch. "Now will you let me work on getting us out of here?"

Their conversation about the rat had long since faded out, replaced by a stretch of comfortable silence. Even though they worked together, and she and Ralph often spent their free time in the garage anyway, Paige couldn't remember the last time they'd talked like this, just the two of them. Although he played it off, Walter had made himself scarce around her lately, and although she could guess at his reasons, it didn't lessen the sting. "Is it so unbearable being stuck in here with me?" she teased, keeping her voice light.

Walter's eyes widened. "No, of course not, I, uh, I d-didn't mean—."

"I'm joking," she explained, and he relaxed visibly. "But our phones don't work in here and Happy took our comms for an upgrade, so unless you plan to pry the doors open with your bare hands, there's not much you can do…" The genius opened his mouth to reply, but Paige beat him to it. "…that doesn't involve putting yourself in unnecessary danger. The team is probably already at home and Ralph is with his dad, so there's no rush, right?"

"I guess," Walter answered unconvincingly, dragging his knees to his chest and dropping his arms over them. They'd managed much worse situations than this, but the genius disliked feeling helpless…especially around her.

They lapsed into silence again, and Paige debated over the words that were on the tip of her tongue. Part of her hated herself for what she was about to do, but Walter was growing restless and the liaison knew she might never get another chance to see his reaction like this, when he had no dark corners of the garage to disappear into, no way to run from their conversation.

"I went out with Tim again," Paige blurted out, swallowing hard at the sudden shift in Walter's expression, his stoicism faltering for a split second before his features hardened again.

"Oh." His tone was noncommittal, but there was a crack in his voice that betrayed him, like a fracture in a dam. "That sounds, uh, nice."

Paige was stepping far too close to the flames now, but whether she liked the answer or not, it was way past time to find out. She reminded herself to breathe steadily and pushed forward. "Yeah. We went to a movie and then we, um, we walked around the park, and…he tried to kiss me," she finished, condensing the last clause into one long, jumbled word.

The already stuffy heat in the elevator was amplified by a thousand as Walter processed the new information, reaching up to loosen his constricting tie and improve the airflow around him. He'd intentionally kept himself in the dark about anything relating to the budding relationship between the liaison and the trainee, but in the interest of…friendship, or whatever was motivating Paige to share these details, he felt compelled to listen and keep his own unfavorable opinions to himself.

But the full import of her words hit him unexpectedly, and before he could plan an appropriate response, something else slipped out. "Tried to?"

Walter's gaze was fixed on her now, and Paige stiffened, an odd mixture of regret and anticipation filling her chest. It was like being under water as the surface came into view—painful and scary, but if she could just force the words out, she might be able to breathe again.

"I kind of, uh, turned away at the last second," she admitted, staring a hole through the floor. "It was a little embarrassing, actually."

"Oh," the genius repeated dumbly, his anxiety quickly dissipating into the kind of stupid elation he'd successfully avoided his whole life until he met her. His better judgment advised him to shut up, but his mouth had clearly switched to autopilot and was operating independently of his brain. "Why?"

Paige laughed humorlessly and trained her gaze on her hands, picking nervously at her cuticles. She stayed quiet so long that Walter had given up on expecting a reply, until she asked, "What did you feel when we kissed?"

A rare sense of panic surged through Walter, and he wrestled with his fight or flight response until the adrenaline in his system subsided. They'd avoided this conversation for so long, and part of him believed they might continue that denial forever, until the tension and the emotions and everything that made this so complicated had evaporated.

"There are no more egg bagels," Paige said before he could answer, looking at him pointedly.

"What?"

"I mean there's nowhere to go, Walter. We've got to stop hiding. Both of us."

The flight instinct flared up in him again, and although he was physically trapped, he immediately started thinking of ways to talk himself out of it. "I don't know what else we need to address…"

"Please, Walter." He'd never heard her voice like that before, so unguarded and unsure, shutting down all of his thoughts. "Open communication. I need it right now."

That was Paige's power: to make him not only want to do things for her—to sacrifice for her, to change for her—but to make him _need_ to do those things, need to fight against his nature to take care of her. He'd never understood it before, when Cabe and Toby tried to explain it to him, but now it gave him this urge to _try_. "It's difficult to explain."

She shrugged. "We're stuck here, so, you know, take your time."

"Okay." It was deathly silent in the elevator as Paige waited for Walter to collect his thoughts, and then an idea came to him out of the blue. "Have you ever put together a bookcase?"

"What?"

"Just bear with me."

"Okay. Sure."

"So you read the instruction manual, and you assemble all of the pieces, and it's…functional. You've figured it out. But just as you're thinking that you have exactly what you need, you find an extra piece." He paused, and Paige nodded to encourage him, her eyes fixed intently on his. "You don't know what its purpose is or how to fit it in to what you've built. But you know it must be important, because why else would it be in there? And suddenly you can't shake this feeling that the whole bookcase will fall apart without it." Walter ducked his head, unable to meet her gaze anymore, and exhaled deeply. "Do you understand?"

"I think so," she answered hesitantly. "I'm the extra piece?"

"You and Ralph both," he confirmed, tapping his fingers nervously on his legs. "The part I didn't know that I, um, that I needed."

"Oh," Paige said softly, transferring her gaze between him and the ground as she absorbed his words. "So why not…" she cleared her throat, "try to fit the piece in, if it's important?"

"Because I would have to take the whole bookcase apart," Walter explained, pushing his knees tighter against his chest as if he could form a barrier around himself. "And if I do, and I can't put it back together, then I've got nothing."

"Or…you could put it back together and it would be better than before," Paige offered, the tinge of optimism in her voice inspiring knots in his stomach.

"I have no way of knowing which one it would be."

"I've seen you build things much more difficult than a bookcase, Walter."

He scratched the back of his neck, feeling uncomfortable heat pricking his skin again. "The bookcase is metaphorical. I thought it would be easier to explain than a jet engine."

"Fine," she said gently. She didn't want to confront him, scare him off, and Walter sometimes hated that she had to hold back around him, like he was a child who couldn't handle an adult conversation. "Let's talk about this extra piece. You can't keep it in a drawer forever, Walter. Eventually you'll have to use it or throw it out."

"I don't want to throw it out," he replied too quickly. "I want to use—I mean, no, I don't want to _use_ —." Walter rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and sighed before turning to face her. "If I lose that piece, this could all prove to be…unsustainable."

"You won't."

"I've come close before," Walter muttered, barely loud enough for her to hear.

"You won't," she said forcefully, determinedly, and the genius had to admit that those words sounded much better than the ones she'd said to him the night she left. "But you have to start telling me the truth, Walter."

The truth. That was a terrifying concept. For someone who respected facts and hated dishonesty, he'd sure betrayed both of those values with Paige. Toby tried to call him out on it, but it was difficult to cop to a lie when he was lying to himself most of all.

But if anything was worth the effort, wouldn't it be her? "Tell me what you want to know, and I'll…I'll try to answer."

"Why did you go out with Linda?" Blood rushed to Paige's face as the jealousy in her voice became apparent. She didn't know why she would choose that as her first question, but she'd been secretly obsessing over it for a month now and was convinced she wouldn't get any relief until she understood. "I mean," she tried to state more calmly, "she's nice, I just thought—."

"Because I can't hurt her," Walter said evenly, and for once Paige was glad for his interruption; she hadn't planned out the rest of that sentence. "I mean, I could, theoretically, but it's unlikely. She doesn't want to get eaten by her cat."

Paige bit her lip. "I'm sorry, what?"

"It's a, uh…long story." He stretched out his legs, focusing on his hands as they rested in his lap. Walter had always insisted on truth, facts, logic— _those_ were the factors that made the world work, so perhaps he shouldn't have been so surprised about the weight that lifted off his shoulders, the odd feeling of freedom that hit him as he came clean. "The point is that Linda doesn't really care about me. I can tell that. I know she can too. There's no risk because there's no real emotion involved."

The liaison stared at him blankly, and Walter struggled to read her expression. He wasn't sure if that was a satisfactory answer, but she had to know he was doing the best he could. "Then what's the point?" she asked eventually, reassuring him with her soft tone like she somehow always managed to.

"It was just an experiment, to…" His canned response wilted as Walter read the disappointment on Paige's face. She was right. He knew why. "To avoid this," he said clearly, his body tensing uncomfortably beneath him as her gaze swiftly snapped to his. "To avoid these, uh, feelings that I'd never experienced before. They were difficult. I wasn't ready for them."

Walter felt strangely lightheaded, and gradually realized that he was holding his breath. He talked himself through the motions of inhaling and exhaling while he waited for a reply from Paige, who was laser-focused on the wall next to him.

She crossed her legs in front of her and leaned over, resting her elbows on her knees and fiddling with a blue stone ring on her finger. A gift from her parents, she'd told him once, though they'd been interrupted before he could learn any more. "Do you know how long I would wait?" she murmured, so quietly that Walter would have strained to hear her if his brain had not already learned to prioritize her voice over any other sound. "For you to be ready? All you had to say was one word, Walter. One word and I would accept that. That's how important you are to me."

Walter forgot to remind himself to exhale, and he choked as his breath caught in his throat again. She was still staring at anything but him, and it shocked the genius how difficult that was to accept. So he used a phrase he wasn't sure he'd ever uttered, and certainly never to a woman. "Paige, please look at me."

The liaison bit back a smirk; it was like they'd changed personalities. She was the one who put Walter on the spot, and now suddenly she couldn't even look at him, fearing that whatever she saw in his eyes might be the final straw that crushed her.

But he was putting himself out on a limb, so far out, for her. The least she could do was match his effort. When she finally complied, Walter cleared his throat and added, "I'm not ready, Paige. I'm not the person I need to be to make this work. With you."

"So the better option is to pretend you don't care at all? To distance yourself and parade other women around in front of me?"

"That's not what I intended," he insisted, fidgeting noticeably in his seat. "But if that's what it takes for us to move past this…"

"But we _haven't_ , Walter," Paige answered passionately, her fingernails marking small, deep crescents in her palm as she squeezed her right hand. "And I don't think we're going to. As long as we're in each other's lives, this thing between us will always be there. How much longer do you want to keep fighting against it? Forever?"

"No," he mumbled, and he was sure as he said it that it was the truth. "But it's for the best, Paige. I will let you down eventually."

Paige shook her head fervently, leaning in closer to him. "And what if you don't?" she challenged. "And screw it, what if you do? I know you, Walter. I know what I'm getting into. Maybe you haven't noticed, but I'm pretty resilient. And you will have to fire me to get me to leave Scorpion, because this is our home now. There's nothing you can do to change that. That's bigger than you and me."

Walter didn't answer. He couldn't. His mouth felt like cotton.

"You want to go slow?" Paige continued, closing the final bit of distance between them until her arm brushed his leg. "Then go slow. Go 'Sylvester driving in Las Vegas' slow. I don't care. Or move on. But just do something, please, Walter."

So he acted, though certainly not in the way either of them expected. Whatever else she'd prepared to say was drowned out and promptly forgotten as the genius launched forward and kissed her. The position was awkward and their lips were chapped from the dry air, and neither of them cared at all, because suddenly it didn't really matter if they ever left that elevator.

* * *

"Excuse me, are you Walter O'Brien?"

The genius twisted around to face the building's receptionist, who waved him over to the front desk. Paige nodded her approval and he reluctantly allowed his hand to slip from her back as he walked across the lobby.

"I have a message for you," the woman said, rifling through a stack of papers on a tray until she produced a folded white notecard. "Have a good night."

"Thank you." He eyed her with caution, taking the card and opening it hesitantly.

_You can thank us with a day off._

_-Toby, Happy, and Sly_

Walter groaned. It would, at the very least, explain why the elevator had started moving on its own shortly after he and Paige had spent about fifteen minutes….working out their issues.

He noticed an arrow pointing to the other side, so he flipped the card over and chuckled lightly when he saw the writing.

_If you're mad, this was Cabe's idea._

"What is it?" Paige asked, appearing suddenly by his side. Walter closed his fingers around the paper and crumpled it in his hand, shoving it into his pocket.

"I'll tell you later," he promised, grinning when he saw Paige's amused expression. "Do you want to get dinner?"


	20. Happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers based on the sneak peeks for "Hard Knox." Thanks for reading!

"Hey, Ralph."

The young genius perked his head, glancing up from his box of files to see his mentor standing in the doorway of the loft. Walter offered him a nervous smile and dropped his gaze quickly, stepping forward hesitantly before he placed a plate on the desk next to his work. "It's been a while since you've eaten, so I, uh, I made you some toast."

"Thank you," Ralph answered politely, taking a swift bite before pushing the food slightly to the side and returning his attention to the documents containing his code. Walter lingered in his spot, unsure of his next words. The boy had never been angry with him, not like this. Even when no one else understood them, no one else believed in them, they believed in each other. Solved problems together. How was he supposed to solve the problem when _he_ was the problem?

Pushing through his uncertainty, Walter wheeled another chair next to the first and sat down, maintaining enough distance for Ralph to feel comfortable. The boy's eyes were trained on the papers in his hands, but Walter could tell from a quick glance at his expression that he was no longer concentrating on them. "I, uh…" He exhaled sharply, laughing a little to himself about how shaky his hands were. He longed to be stoic, logical, but even he knew that wasn't what the situation called for. "I reacted…badly…this morning. I am sorry, Ralph."

The young genius said nothing as he reached out and moved the plate of toast in front of him, taking another bite and washing it down with a bottle of water Paige had brought him earlier. Walter took that as a signal to continue and cleared his throat.

"I just need you to understand that it had nothing to do with you. There is a…puzzle in another area of my life that has proved to be…difficult to decrypt. I directed my frustrated over that to you, which is incredibly unfair, and I promise it won't happen again." Walter watched Ralph as the boy pondered his apology, his brows scrunched up in deep thought as he stared ahead at the wall. "I've always endeavored to teach you not to be afraid of what you can accomplish. I never meant to belittle you in that way. Your project is incredible, Ralph. Far beyond what I and the rest of the team could imagine. I want nothing more than to help you."

Ralph finished chewing and sat in silence for a few tense moments before he finally, mercifully responded. "I knew you didn't mean it," he said, his small frame slumping down in the seat as his hands fell into his lap. "It was illogical to be upset."

"No, it wasn't," Walter insisted, leaning forward and tilting his head down until he caught Ralph's eyes. "My behavior was inexcusable. I acted immaturely. More immaturely than you ever have." He let out a soft chuckle, experiencing a welcome sense of relief as the boy smiled. "It was human to be upset, Ralph. You should express your feelings. I wish…I wish that I understood how to do that, sometimes."

Ralph nodded and ruminated for a minute before he asked, "What is the puzzle?"

Walter blinked. "What?"

"The puzzle," he repeated, bringing his legs up and crossing them in front of him on the seat. "What's frustrating you?"

"Oh." The memory of his earlier fight with Paige—the disappointment in her voice, her threat to leave, _again_ —flooded back into his mind, and he shifted uncomfortably. "It's, uh….complicated."

"Can I help?"

Walter masked his anxiety and flashed his protégé a smile, honestly touched by the excitement in Ralph's voice. He reached out and patted the boy's hand, grateful that he'd managed to repair at least one relationship he'd fractured. "Unfortunately, I need to take care of this one on my own."

* * *

"I apologized to Ralph," Walter blurted out as he came to a stop in front of Paige's desk. She minimized the windows on her computer and glanced up, giving him her full attention. "You were right. I had no right to speak to him that way. I made sure he understood that it was not his fault."

The hardness in her expression faded, and Walter offered her a tight-lipped smile before heading toward his desk. He'd made it three steps before Paige called out, "So why, then?"

The genius stiffened, deliberating about whether or not to turn around. He couldn't pretend he hadn't heard her, and since Cabe, Tim, and the other geniuses were elbow-deep in Italian food ten blocks away, there was no one in the garage to block this inevitable conversation.

He swallowed and twisted to face her, figuring he would play it off as well as he could. "Hm?"

"You're upset, Walter. I've known you long enough to know that." Watching him curiously, Paige pushed herself away from her desk and stood up, walking slowly around to the front and leaning against the edge. There was somehow too much and too little space left between them, but he didn't budge. "Is it about Megan?"

Walter coughed, unprepared to hear his sister's name. Once he recovered, he realized that it was the perfect alibi. Paige was handing him a guaranteed ticket to avoid the truth, which is why he was shocked at the answer that fell from his lips. "No."

The liaison wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing at her sleeves as if she was cold despite the summer heat in the garage. All he wanted to do was walk away, but he found himself unable to move a muscle. Perhaps it had felt wrong, somehow, to hide dishonestly behind Megan, but now Walter had no idea how he would explain the true nature of his irritation.

"Is it about Tim?" Paige asked, and the genius noted a change in her demeanor, though he wasn't sure if it was positive or negative. When he failed to respond, they both knew she'd guessed accurately. "Scorpion is your team, Walter. No one is going to take that away from you."

"I know," the genius answered quickly, but his words lacked the conviction he'd hoped for. He cleared his throat, attempting to dispel the shakiness in his voice while he plastered on a fake smirk. "It's, uh, petty, really."

Paige eyed him skeptically. "So it's just professional competition, then?"

"What else would it be?"

That question was a mistake. He knew it immediately, as the liaison dropped her gaze and inhaled a deep breath, her palm moving to grip the desk behind her. "Never mind," she murmured, raking one hand messily through her hair. "It's not important."

Walter's face fell. He'd hurt her again. He seemed to be incapable of stopping. Everything he'd done—every time he had denied his instincts and withdrawn from her—was to protect her from his tendency to blow up his relationships, but it seemed to be all in vain, because the right course of action still eluded him.

"Paige," he said quietly, earning her attention. "I'm sorry."

She swallowed, clearly caught off guard by his apology. "For what, Walter?"

_For everything._ Even his genius mind couldn't properly list all of the ways he had wronged her, all the reasons he didn't deserve her and certainly had no right to say what he was about to say. "Scorpion is, um, not the only thing I have to lose."

Paige's eyes widened, but like Walter, she seemed incapable of any other physical reaction.

"I don't like seeing you with him," he mumbled, using every ounce of his strength not to avert his gaze. "I don't like thinking about you with him. And I really, really don't like the idea that I could lose you and Ralph to him."

"Walter…" Paige started, but he shook his head and she swallowed her words.

"It's unfair of me to tell you this," he argued, rubbing the back of his neck roughly. "I was the one who put Scorpion before you. I told you that we couldn't have a relationship, and then I let my guard down around you, and I never tell you what I'm really thinking—."

"Walter," she said more firmly, taking a tentative step in his direction. "It's okay."

The genius held up a hand to stop her approach. "No, Paige. You don't want to be with me. Even if you think you do, it's a mistake."

"Don't tell me what I think, Walter," she said, sharply and kindly all at the same time. Paige inched closer to him, flexing her fingers as she ached to touch him. "You might be a genius, but you've got to stop making decisions for me."

Walter nodded, his head swimming from her proximity. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to hold back for so long, when the only thing that consumed his thoughts currently was how much he needed her. "I want you to be happy, Paige."

"Then let me decide what will make me happy," she whispered, close enough now for Walter to smell the lavender lotion on her skin. "I'm not happy being away from you. Are you happy being away from me?"

The genius shut his eyelids, fighting a losing battle to keep his head when all he could sense was her. "Of course not."

That appeared to have finally been the right thing to say, as Paige closed the gap between them and snaked her hands over his shoulders and around his neck, no space left between them. He memorized every second, every sensation, her breath on his skin, her fingers leaving an impression everywhere they traveled. Even with his eyes closed, he could tell that she was going to kiss him, and his body tensed in response.

"Wait, Paige," he murmured, blinking until he met her questioning gaze. Walter felt her start to pull away and tightened his grip on her waist, afraid she would disappear from his arms. Swallowing hard, he leaned forward and touched his forehead against hers, attempting to communicate what there wasn't enough time to say. "I want to do this right."

Paige released a deep breath, nodding almost imperceptibly. "Me too." She didn't have to ask what he meant. She always knew. "I'll talk to Tim and you talk to Linda. And then…" Her head tilted up, and she dragged one palm along the back of his neck until he looked at her. The corner of her lips curved. "And then I expect you to come find me and finish what we started."

"Okay," Walter breathed, simultaneously disappointed and relieved as she left his grasp. She called for Ralph and shot the genius one last glance, looking as lightheaded as he felt, as the two walked out the door of the garage.

Without hesitation, the genius scrambled to pick up the phone.

He wasn't wasting any more time.


	21. Yes

Seeing Toby down on one knee shouldn't have been the most surreal thing that had happened that day, but somehow it was. Despite twelve hours of physical and psychological torture—logic dictated that he should still be in the hospital, but he'd fought with every single one of his doctors and petulantly checked himself out—Toby refused to go home without carrying out his original plan for the night.

"I'm never going to stop loving you, Happy Quinn," he said emphatically before pulling the oddly-shaped ring out of his pocket. The mechanic's eyes widened slightly, but she didn't seem nearly as surprised as Walter had expected her to be. "I know you've suffered a lifetime of people walking out on you. I want that to end with me. I don't care what happens. I won't leave you."

Happy glanced nervously at the other team members in the garage, all stunned into silence except for an excited Sylvester, and lowered herself to whisper to Toby, "Are you sure you're ready to do this right now? This is a pretty big decision."

The psychologist looked undeterred and held the ring up higher. "It'll never be too soon for me, Hap. I understand if you're not ready. Collins said that you couldn't marry me, but, you know…I figured I'd try."

"Collins sucks. I'd be happy to prove him wrong." Tuning out the expectant stares and bated breath of those around her, Happy took the ring from him and angled it toward the light, inspecting its details. "Long engagement, right?"

Toby grinned and nodded once. "As long as you want."

"Then yes." She slipped the ring on her thin finger and matched his smile as she extended her hand, pulling him up to standing position. "My answer is yes."

Toby nearly scooped her off her feet as he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into a long kiss that she didn't fight and an embrace so tight it seemed he would crush her. Walter wasn't sure, but it sounded like she might have giggled.

* * *

Walter was nursing a bottle of soda as he watched the team from a dim corner of the garage. Everyone was running on a high of adrenaline; the genius questioned the wisdom of making such a significant commitment while operating under the rush of survival, but perhaps it was just strange to see such a swift burst of development in their relationship after watching Toby helplessly pine for Happy over the years. It contradicted every evolutionary pattern Walter understood.

"Relax, Walt." He jumped as the tiny mechanic snuck up next to him and leaned against a row of metal shelving. "We'll be as professional as we've always been." Walter shot her a sideways glance, and Happy smirked. "Granted, that's not saying much. But it won't change the team. I just want to make sure you know that."

"Hm." Walter didn't quite believe her, but the truth was that he'd learned to get comfortable with _some_ change, enough that he was sure he could navigate this new dynamic eventually. "I suppose I should congratulate you?"

"Thanks," Happy said tonelessly. "But what you _should_ do is get your head out of your ass and stop Paige from going to Tahoe with that living Ken doll."

Walter choked on his drink, clearing his throat to cover the embarrassing noise. He'd been purposely pushing thoughts of Paige out of his mind all night, diverting his attention from her as she hugged the newly-engaged couple and snapped photographs for them. The whole team was taking a few days off after the Collins debacle, and Walter couldn't look at Paige without being reminded that she would be off somewhere in Tahoe with Tim. With Toby's safe return, he'd thought Happy would be too distracted to confront him about his own romantic endeavors, but as usual, he was mistaken.

"Paige is doing what she wants to do," Walter said unconvincingly before taking another sip of his soda. "She deserves to take some personal time. Spend her vacation with someone who cares about her."

Happy groaned before grabbing his bottle and slamming it on the shelf behind him, causing him to jolt again. "I can't…do you hear yourself when you talk?" Walter reached for the drink, but she slapped his hand away. "Why is it that everyone else's happiness matters besides yours?"

"I'm happy," he protested, but her expression assured him that she didn't believe him even a little.

"Denial is not happiness, Walter," she countered. "I'm not a huge fan of defining life by romantic relationships, but the fact is that despite your best intentions, you fell for Paige and you won't be happy if you lose her when you know damn well that she's already yours. I've spent my whole life fighting any kind of emotional intimacy, but Toby's never given up on me. Paige hasn't given up on you either."

Walter stared at her blankly, thrown by her forcefulness. He realized that she must feel strongly about the matter if she was taking time to yell at him instead of celebrating with Toby, but his discomfort about the topic won out over his respect for her opinion. "I made a decision based on the evidence and I stick by it. Paige and I have a vastly higher statistical chance of staying friends than we do of—."

"Can it, you idiot." Happy massaged the bridge of her nose as if Walter was giving her a headache—he probably was—and sighed before facing him again. "You think that you're putting her needs ahead of yours, but you're lying to yourself. You're denying her of something that could make both of your lives infinitely better. Do you understand? This is what she wants. You are what she wants."

"I find that highly unlikely," Walter muttered under his breath. He tried sounding detached, to cover the fact that his heart was racing at twice its normal rate and pumping viciously in his ears, but he was unsuccessful.

"Stop beating yourself up for who you are. It's a good thing, Walt." Happy's voice softened and she reached forward, resting her jeweled hand on his arm. "We're not robots. We're capable of…connections. You deserve happiness, no matter what you think. Quit telling yourself that you don't."

* * *

Walter yawned and rubbed his eyes to stimulate his circulation. He was exhausted, and he'd expected to fall straight to sleep after the team left, but rest eluded him and he decided to help out with some of the paperwork so Paige didn't come back to an overwhelming inbox.

A sickening pit filled his stomach. Paige had threatened to leave before, but she'd never gone through with it. Which made Walter's sudden mental image, of Paige and Tim falling in love with Tahoe and deciding to move there with Ralph, entirely illogical.

But no less unsettling.

Happy's words were playing on a loop in his mind. He wished he could forget them…forget his initial "experiment" with Paige…forget every time he'd looked at her and Ralph and wondered, just for a second, what it might be like to come home to them. To look up at Paige like Toby had looked at Happy and…

"Stop being absurd," he muttered to himself in frustration, dropping his head into his palms.

"Are you okay?"

Walter straightened up suddenly as Paige's amused voice reached him. The wheels on his chair squeaked harshly and his toe stubbed into the side of his desk in his scramble to stand. "Yep."

The liaison released a soft laugh, giving him a once-over before she crossed over to her own workstation and opened the top drawer. It was only then that Walter noticed the black duffel bag in her hand, which she swung onto the desktop and unzipped.

"You're leaving?" Walter cringed at the subtle crack in his voice. Of course she was; he'd basically handed her this trip on a silver platter.

"Yeah. Off to Tahoe," Paige said obviously as she stuffed a pair of dress shoes and a makeup kit into a side pocket. "I just wanted to grab a few things."

"Sure." Walter pressed his lips together, trying to calm his visceral reaction at the idea of Paige wearing those black heels for Tim.

"I feel kind of bad leaving after everything that's happened today, but maybe it's a good time to get away." Paige resettled her luggage and zipped it before glancing back to him. "Do you need me to wrap up anything else before I go?"

Walter snapped out of his internal monologue and responded a second too late. "Um, no, everything's done. Thank you."

"Okay," she said in a chipper voice, but there was something off, and Walter wondered if he'd become adept enough at reading emotions to recognize disappointment when he heard it. _No_. He was only projecting his own insecurities onto her. She was getting what she wanted. What she deserved. "Well, I'll see you on Monday, I guess."

Walter dropped his eyes. He could almost picture Happy's disapproving gaze as Paige adjusted her grip on the handle and walked toward the door. The genius was frozen, seemingly unable to move a single cell in his body. He was going to let her walk away, just like he'd done countless times, just like he would do for good one of these days.

Maybe it was that terrifying inevitability that sparked him, but Walter surprised himself and Paige by stepping in her path, blocking her from the exit. She quirked one eyebrow up, staring at him questioningly, but he didn't exactly have a plan. He held up his hands to indicate that she should wait, which she did patiently until he finally came up with, "I'm not sure that you should go to Tahoe."

Paige's face scrunched, and Walter felt like he was standing on pins while he waited for her response. "You're not sure? You gave me the tickets, remember?"

"Yes, but I…" He felt a familiar panic rise through his chest, but he took a deep breath to brace himself and winced as he exhaled too loudly. "I don't think you should go."

Paige continued to stare at him quizzically, waiting for him to elaborate, but the words were just out of reach and he scrambled to think of a way to tell her…what did he want to tell her? Suddenly he couldn't think of that either. Everything was blank except for the singular need not to watch her leave again. "You don't think I should go, or you don't want me to go?" she asked to break the overly long silence, the expression in her eyes completely unreadable.

"I don't want you to go," Walter admitted, breathing a quiet sigh of relief as something approximating human conversation finally came out of his mouth. "I think you should stay."

The liaison made no move for what seemed to Walter like an eternity. He was desperate to act, somehow—to touch her or run away from her, depending on her reaction—but he didn't want to startle her, so he matched her heated stare until she dropped her bag onto the floor with a thud and took a step toward him, bringing them impossible close. "Then give me a reason to."

That was all the provocation Walter required, and his lips met hers softly at first, his hands snaking under her jacket and around her hips. When he was satisfied that she wasn't going to pull away, he applied more pressure against her mouth, allowing his fingers to graze over her back. Paige responded favorably, pushing back against him and gripping his hair with her palms.

He was never letting her walk away again.


	22. Safe

Even an hour after he'd said them, the words still burned on his tongue. _I love her. I love her. I love her._

He repressed that idea for so long, fought against it with everything he had, and now that it was loose, he couldn't shut it off.

_Love._ How could he have let things get so far? Why had he pushed Paige toward Tim, again and again, even when she'd asked him to make her stay? She didn't force the issue, even when they both knew that his desperate speech was about her. The way he thought about her, felt about her, needed her. Now that he'd met her and Ralph, he wasn't sure he would ever be able to live without them again.

Collins insisted that this made Walter weak, and a few short years ago, he would have been inclined to agree. But even the mad genius could be trapped by sentiment. He was caught because he had once formed an attachment, found a place where he felt safe and loved. Perhaps it was an unavoidable part of human nature, and no one was above it. Maybe Walter was indescribably fortunate to find another person who understood and cared for him as much as Megan had. Definitely, he was an idiot.

Walter tapped his fingers anxiously against the steering wheel, electricity searing through every nerve in his body. He needed to hear her voice, to know somehow that he hadn't alienated her permanently. The genius couldn't even say with conviction why Paige waited for him so long. Any normal person should have—and did—grow tired of his bluntness and emotional distance within a few months, if not weeks. And yet two years later, Paige was still looking at him that way, waiting for the words he always refused to say.

Did that mean she loved him?

Walter's heart thumped violently at the thought. He'd jumped off buildings and faced down gunmen with less terror than this. Though he supposed that, if Toby and Cabe were any example, it was normal for romantic attachments to hurt this much.

Staying away from Paige did not prove any less painful. Seeing her with Tim made him want to jump off a building without the extension cord, but his stubborn pride would never let him admit it. Risking his life for hers seemed easier, a way to demonstrate her importance to him without saying the three words that were making it nearly impossible for him to catch his breath now.

Without thinking, he pressed the call button again, but he was greeted by her voice mail. Her phone was probably dead; she'd never turn it off willingly, in case Ralph needed to contact her. Walter thought briefly about calling Tim, but that seemed insufferably awkward, even if he _was_ planning on interrupting their vacation to steal back the woman he'd all but handed the Homeland trainee.

This was the kind of perfectly stupid romantic gesture he'd seen in the movies that previous girlfriends forced him to watch. He scoffed at the logic of driving through the night to reach someone that the character would see in a few days. But now, with the repellent image of Tim's hands on Paige and the knowledge that he would be on the edge of spontaneously combusting until he told her the truth, logic didn't have much of a place in his mind.

* * *

Walter froze when he saw her. The sun was starting to lift over the horizon, and Paige was staring out the window of the hotel lobby, the faint glow reflecting off her dark hair. He was glued to his seat, suddenly aware that he had no idea what he'd planned to say despite driving for six hours and unsure if he was even capable of speaking. He was only pulled out of his reverie when Tim appeared behind her, resting his hand on her waist as he leaned in too closely to speak in her ear. Walter found contentment in the idea of throttling Tim for touching her like that, but it could have been him, feeling her warm skin under his palms, if he'd only stopped hiding behind a million empty excuses and grabbed her months ago.

They disappeared from view and Walter fumbled to unlock his seatbelt. He knew what room they would be in; he made the reservations, after all, and for the life of him he couldn't remember why he ever planned to come with Linda. The architecture of the old hotel—ornate and weathered, with oversized paintings lining the walls—seemed frivolous to him, but when he thought about it now, he had a sneaking suspicion that he picked it based on Paige's tastes.

Walter locked the doors of his car and entered the lobby hesitantly. He was exhibiting so many markers of nervousness that he half expected the hotel staff to think he was robbing them.

He bounded up the stairs, far too restless to wait for the elevator. When he reached the fourth floor, he decided that was a mistake, and had to stabilize himself against the wall until his heart rate calmed. One of the doors to his left cracked open, and he heard Tim call to Paige that he would be right back. Walter ducked into a side hallway and swallowed as the trainee passed him and vanished down the staircase.

The genius rounded a corner and grabbed the door just before it locked shut, gripping the handle painfully tight. It occurred to him that Paige might not be in the proper state for him to barge in—and would likely consider it rude, even if she was—so he tapped his knuckles gently on the plaster.

"Come in," she called, her voice sending a fresh wave of uncertainty through him. There was no simple way to explain how much he'd screwed up, how much she had broken down every single thing he once believed, how much the thought of her having feelings for anyone else distressed him. "Never mind, you can't. Hold on."

Walter, acting on impulse, swung the door fully open and stepped into the room, stopping abruptly as he met her gaze. She was standing on the balcony, leaning against the railing, her eyes widening substantially when she saw him.

"I shouldn't be here," he mumbled, the genuine insanity of his actions hitting him all at once. He was interfering with her vacation, with her life, doing this all on his terms again instead of thinking about what would be best for her. Walter backed away from the door and shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"Walter, hold on," Paige called after him as he hastened down the hallway. She finally caught up to him as he reached the exit and stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "What are you doing here? Is Toby okay?"

"Toby's fine," he said automatically, his muscles tensing as her touch burned through him. "Well, not fine, but his condition has not changed since you left."

"Okay?" Walter finally spun around to face her, and Paige dropped her hand, much to his disappointment. She quirked her eyebrow. "Did you drive all the way here?"

"Yes," he admitted shakily, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep them from acting of their own accord. Now that she was in front of him, more gorgeous than ever, he wasn't sure what he might rush into. "I don't know what I was thinking. It was…illogical."

"You're confusing me," Paige said softly before cracking a small smile to ease the tension. "That's nothing new, but I really wish you would tell me if everything's okay."

"Tim will be back soon." It was a weak attempt to change the subject, and Paige blinked in surprise, as if she'd forgotten that Tim was there at all.

"Walter, I'm not letting you leave until you fill me in. You drove more than four hundred miles. It must important."

The genius wondered how he'd felt so bold when he left the garage; all of his old insecurities suddenly gripped him, and his mind went blank as she watched him expectantly.

"This was supposed to be easier," he choked out, his breaths coming out in short, shallow spurts. Walter backed away from her and paced around the hallway, needing distance to think even though what he really wanted was to be infinitely closer. "I came here to tell you that I love you and now I'm here and you're with Tim, because I made that happen, and I don't understand how to do this or even if I should be—."

"What?"

Walter allowed his rambling to die out, squinting as he turned back to her. "I said I don't understand how to—."

"No." Paige shook her head slowly. Her stare was intense, almost too intense for him to meet, and he knew she'd heard the words even though he rushed through them. "Before that."

"Walter?" The genius groaned internally as Tim's voice appeared behind him, shaking them both out of their standoff. "Is everything alright?"

He said it with a smile, but the context was clear: _what are you doing here, and do I need to get rid of you?_

Paige held up her hand to indicate that Walter should stay silent, which was probably for the best. "Go ahead to the room, Tim. Walter and I need to talk."

"Okay," he answered, the defensive edge in his voice more than evident. "Yell if you need me."

The liaison nodded her agreement and breathed out a sigh of relief as the door clicked shut behind her. "Walter…"

"I should go," he muttered, flexing his fingers awkwardly as he stood in limbo, debating between staying and running.

She made the decision for him as she reached forward and grabbed his arm, stilling him. "You already let me go…I'm not letting you go."

"I didn't want to let you go," Walter said truthfully. He didn't move at all, afraid to lose the contact of her hand, which was giving him a strange sort of comfort. "I came here to stop you."

Paige sighed, and Walter worried that she might pull away, but she only clutched him tighter and angled her body closer to his, as if blocking their conversation from nonexistent bystanders…or perhaps just from Tim. She lowered her voice. "What did you come here to tell me, Walter?"

He shifted so that they were standing directly opposite each other and slid his palm over her wrist, trapping the hand she had on his arm. Walter could sense her physical reaction as she swallowed hard and flicked her gaze between his eyes and his fingers. "I wanted to invite you here and I talked myself out it. Don't spend the weekend with Tim. Please don't stay here with him."

"You can't just…" She glanced away briefly, and when he could see her face again, he noticed that her eyes were glassy, like she was on the verge of crying. "All you've done for months is encourage me to be with Tim. Now I am and you're telling me to stay away from him?"

"I know, Paige. I've done every part of this wrong, and I wish that I had a good reason why, but I don't." Walter closed the rest of the distance between them, keeping his hand in place even though the contact was beginning to overwhelm him. "I've been so…reluctant to risk Scorpion. It's the only place I've ever felt safe. The only place I've ever been happy. But you are part of that, and if I lose you, then all of my efforts to keep the team going have been for nothing."

Paige broke free from his grasp, running a trembling hand through her hair. The genius tried to maintain his composure, but he knew he was failing to keep his emotions off his face. He'd expected, perhaps foolishly, that her immediate reaction would be more…positive.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, although Walter was sure he was the only one who needed to apologize. "I'm just having trouble processing all of this."

"I can relate," Walter said with a dark chuckle, and he was relieved when Paige's expression softened and she smiled back. "So I'll say what I came to say, and then if you need me to leave and give you time until you come back to the garage, then I'll do that." She opened her mouth to respond, but settled for nodding instead. "I don't know that I…that I completely understand the concept of love yet. But it can't be stronger than what I do feel. So I came here to say t-that I love you. And I'm sorry that I pretended I didn't. I was certain—and I still am, to some extent—that I would cause irreparable damage to our relationship."

"That's what scares me, Walter." Seeing the guilt that colored his features, Paige added, "Not that you would hurt me, but that you're so convinced you'll hurt me. I feel like…" She reached out tentatively and grazed her fingers along his temple, causing his breath to catch in his throat. "Like you'll disappear as soon as things get difficult, and you'll always be trying to protect me by distancing yourself, and I can't do that, Walter. If you tell me that you love me and then you push me away again, I don't know if I can handle that."

He wasn't good at reassurances; that was why he had Paige. But he didn't want his silence to unsettle her, so the genius wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him, giving her time to pull away if she wanted to. She didn't, just regarded him curiously—almost challengingly—until his lips touched hers and every sensation he'd experienced during their first kiss crashed into him a hundred times more powerfully. It felt better than he imagined to have her body underneath his hands, the heat of her skin matching his, her own fingers tentatively clutching at his shirt.

Walter broke off after a moment, not wanting to cause a public scene in the hallway eight feet from Tim, but he didn't let go of her. "You know what I am, Paige," he said in a low voice as she pulled back, breathless and a little flushed. "I can't promise I'll be everything you should have, but I will give you everything that I'm capable of."

The corner of her lips curved up. "I think I've had enough of Tahoe." Paige rested her hands on his chest, tugging absentmindedly on his collar. "Do you want to take me home?"

_Home._ She was part of his home, and he grinned at the idea that he might also be part of hers. "Yes."


	23. Danger

Walter nearly dropped his tablet when Paige started to stir in her bed, muttering something unintelligible as her hand groped blindly at the sheets. He reached out quickly to link his fingers around hers, dragging his chair closer to her side and planting a quick kiss on the back of her hand.

Her eyes finally fluttered open, and Walter swallowed at the tiny scratches and bruises that dotted her pale skin. He'd seen her injured before, but never…never like this. "Hey," he said quietly, giving her a smile that didn't quite ring true. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got hit by a truck," she joked, a weak smirk gracing her lips as the color drained out of Walter's face. "Sorry, I didn't mean to give you an aneurysm."

"Not funny."

"A little funny." Paige shifted again, wincing as she attempted to roll over to her side and face him. Walter moved his tablet from his lap to the table next to him before shifting onto the bed to make it easier for her, and she angled her legs toward the far edge of the bed to give him room to sit. "You don't have to stay here all the time, you know. When did you sleep last?"

It was just past eleven p.m., but Cabe had made it clear to the hospital staff that visiting hours didn't apply to Scorpion. Toby and Happy were watching Ralph, so there was no reason for the genius to be anywhere except by Paige's side. "I'm not tired."

"Walter, if you don't start sleeping and eating, you're going to end up in a bed next to me." Her tone was meant to be stern, but the intubation had left her throat too scratchy and raw to be convincing. "How's Ralph?"

He grinned a bit at the mention of her son's name. "Great. He destroyed Toby at poker. No bets, of course."

"Tell him that if he ever bets with or on my kid, I'm going to kill him." Paige let her head sink back into the pillow, her gaze sliding up to the ceiling where Sylvester had attached temporary glow-in-the-dark stars in astronomically-accurate constellation shapes. "How are you?"

"I'm fine."

Even in the dim light, Walter knew she was rolling her eyes at his default response. "Please. You look almost as bad as I do."

"You don't look bad," he murmured, and Paige would have assumed that he was lying to protect her feelings but his voice was too earnest. The corner of her lips curled up. "Do you want anything? Water? I can get a nurse to administer more pain medication, if you need it."

"I'm okay," she insisted with a note of finality that meant she was talking about more than her current needs. Paige squeezed Walter's hand, running her thumb over his knuckles in the way she'd learned went a long way toward soothing him. "How is Happy? She got the worst of it, but Toby said she was doing alright this morning."

Despite his desire to hold it together for Paige, the genius couldn't help but inhale sharply. And audibly, it seemed, judging by the speed at which the liaison's eyes met his again. "Happy is recovering at the predicted rate," he forced out, blinking a little more frequently than necessary. "The doctors are monitoring her closely, but it appears they've succeeded in stemming her internal bleeding."

Paige nodded, biting her lip as she absorbed the information. She'd been lucky to get by with a broken ankle and a shard of glass stuck in her arm. She didn't even need surgery, just some heavy-duty stitches. Happy was driving, and the brunt of the impact was on her.

"It's my fault," Paige said unexpectedly, shaking her head against the pillow. "I insisted that we needed to stay farther back, and we lost him. We never even saw it coming until he was on us."

Walter drew in another shaky breath, attempting to calm the beating of his heart that seemed to thump in every part of his body. He knew he should have listened to his instincts. When he got a lead on the location of Homeland's cyberterrorist suspect, Happy insisted that she and Paige were the closest, and decided to tail him instead of relying on the spotty GPS signal. Walter was staunchly against the idea, but there was no arguing with the two women, especially when they teamed up.

But the four minutes they'd lost eyes on him were more than enough time for him to loop around, tear through the intersection, and T-bone Happy's SUV.

Walter and Cabe arrived two minutes later, and he could still remember the numbness that consumed him when he saw the wreckage, when Paige and Happy were pulled from it and loaded into the back of an ambulance. The numbness had only subsided when the doctors confirmed that both of them would survive with no long-term damage, and Walter had an inkling that the empty sensation was all that kept him from crumbling.

"At least we caught him," she continued, oblivious to Walter's internal monologue. "I'll rely on that for comfort every time I see these scars."

His eyes traveled up her arm, landing on the gashes that would soon heal and become a permanent reminder. The genius's free hand dropped to the area, his fingers splaying lightly over her bandages, careful not to touch any spot that would be too sensitive. "I never should have let you go after him."

"I don't recall you having much of a choice," Paige joked softly. Seeing an almost trademark mixture of guilt and sadness marking Walter's features, the liaison tugged on his hand, bringing his attention back to her. "This will all heal. It'll take me longer to catch up on that mountain of paperwork on my desk than it will for me to be healthy again."

"You won't have any paperwork. I took care of it. Well, the team and I."

Paige raised her eyebrow. "You did?"

"Double-checked and submitted. I believed the transition would be easier without any loose ends."

Walter's eyes widened as the words fell out of his mouth. He hoped futilely that Paige was too tired or distracted to notice his slip, but when she released his hand abruptly, he knew he'd had no such luck.

"What transition?"

Walter pressed his lips together, wondering what glitch in his brain caused him to clam up when he needed to speak and blurt out his thoughts when he should stay silent. He patted the bed awkwardly and said, "We'll talk about it later. You need to rest."

"I don't think so." There seemed to be a flush of color in Paige's cheeks that wasn't there before. She was alert, now, and Walter was well aware that being evasive would do nothing but piss her off. "What transition?"

The genius took a brief moment to organize his thoughts—it wasn't nearly long enough, but he felt the pressure under her questioning stare—and dragged his hand across his mouth before dropping it in his lap. "To Elia's company."

There was a long silence until Paige snapped, "What?"

"I spoke to him this morning. He has the ideal position for you in his global relations department. It's an excellent match for your skills. Impressive pay and benefits. More than I'm able to offer you."

She continued to glare at him in confusion, and Walter knew he was telling her the facts out of order, but in his defense, he'd never intended to have this conversation until after Paige's full recovery. "I have a job. Unless you're firing me right now?"

"In a manner of speaking," Walter gulped, berating himself internally for getting so flustered. Not that it was a surprise, exactly, considering that she had been breaking down his defenses since the first day. "Your accident was serious, Paige. It could very well have resulted in…in fatalities. It seemed imperative that I find a more secure position for you. Something safer."

Paige squinted. "Why in the _hell_ would you think I wanted to work for Elia?"

"As I mentioned before, the salary is substantial—."

"It was a rhetorical question," she interrupted. "I can't fight with you laying down. Help me sit up, please."

Walter stood and circled around to her side, placing a hand on the middle of her back and guiding her into a better position while he adjusted the incline on her bed. He took a moment to flip over her pillows onto the cooler side before reclaiming his seat by her legs.

"Thank you," Paige said, and he found that her weakened condition made it significantly more difficult to gauge her level of anger. "You're not firing me, Walter. That's insane."

"It has nothing to do with your work," he insisted. "And it will have no impact on our relationship. I've run the numbers and we will still have an ample amount of time to spend together."

"I really think you're missing the point, Walter." Another momentary flash of pain washed over her face, and the genius reached for her instantly but Paige held up her hand to stop him. "I'm fine. And you can call Elia and tell him I'm not interested, because as soon as I heal, I'm going back to the garage."

"Paige…"

"Did you get Happy a job with Elia too?"

Walter pressed his lips together, but his silence was all the answer she needed.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Paige said bitingly. "She was injured much worse than I was, so why are you so worried about protecting me from danger and not her?"

"It's…different." His tone was defensive, and he knew he didn't have to be that way around Paige, but she wasn't viewing the situation from his perspective. "Happy is a genius. She's unlikely to fit in anywhere else. But you can."

"I don't need to fit in anywhere else. I'm happy with Scorpion. This is our family. And for that matter…" Paige's voice started to crack, and she paused to gesture to the miniature refrigerator next to her bed. Walter understood and reached down to retrieve a bottle of water, uncapping it for her before she took a swig and balanced it on her lap. "For that matter, I've been taken hostage, I've been within the blast radius of bombs, I've been _shot_ before, Walter, so I don't understand why you're reacting like this because of a stupid car accident. That's not even in the top five of things we've faced, disaster-wise."

"It's different," he repeated.

"Because I'm not a genius?"

"Because…" Walter paused, startled by the shakiness in his words. "Because you've never been injured like this before."

The fire in Paige's eyes softened at that, at the implication of fear that he struggled to admit to, at the self-loathing of a man whose extraordinary IQ couldn't help him protect the woman he loved. Walter dropped his gaze to his shoes, just grazing the tile floor.

"You have Ralph," the genius murmured. "It's different for you. That's why I'm asking you to leave and not Happy. The rest of us don't have anyone waiting for us to come home."

Walter looked down at Paige's hand as it slid over his forearm, the moonlight highlighting faint purple discoloration on her fingers. "That's not true." She used her grip to leverage herself as she inched closer to him on the mattress. "And even if it was, did it ever occur to you that I don't work for Scorpion because of money? Or you? That maybe I do it because I wanted to help make a difference in the world, and it's selfish for you to ask me to give that up?"

"I'm sorry." Walter cleared his throat and turned his attention to the window, studying the rhythm of the palm trees as they swayed in the summer air. "When I was…denying my feelings for you, I was able to compartmentalize my emotions. I didn't enjoy seeing you in danger during missions, but I convinced myself that it was for the good of the team."

"And now?"

"Now that we're together, I feel more responsible for you than I ever have. I feel…overwhelmed when you're at risk. It's too difficult to think clearly. That's why I didn't want to do this." Walter could tell immediately that he'd said the wrong thing, and he turned to her in panic. "That's not what I meant. That's—."

"Why you were scared to do this. I know." Her voice was reassuring, and Walter marveled at her ability to understand him even when he was communicating with all the grace and tact of a poorly-behaved toddler. "I get scared for you too, you know. Especially given your instinct to put everyone else's life ahead of your own. But I accept it because Scorpion is a part of who you are. And now it's a part of me, too. You need me there."

Walter shook his head, less fiercely this time. "No, I need you at your apartment when I come over. I need you to…to explain things that people say but don't mean. I need you at Ralph's graduation." He let out a rough breath. "I need you alive, Paige."

The liaison stared at him for another moment before leaning forward and resting her cheek against his shoulder, her arms circling loosely around his waist. Walter pressed a kiss into her hair before tilting his head to rest against hers. "Do you have any idea how infuriating you are sometimes?" she mumbled into his neck.

He chuckled, careful not to disrupt her with the movement. "I've been told."

Paige sighed and let her eyes slide shut as she nestled deeper into him. The genius felt the rhythm of her heart against his side, and he remembered something Cabe noted once, about the phenomenon of two hearts beating in sync. It had sounded silly then, but somehow it seemed more possible to him now.

"I don't like when you make decisions for me, Walter." Even as she said it, her fingers trailed up and down his side, assuring him that she wasn't angry. "If you're concerned about something, I need you to talk to me about it."

"I know," he murmured. "I'm sorry. This is new territory. Being so…concerned."

"Give it time. You can't expect me to leave the team any more than I could expect you to. But we'll find our balance." Walter felt her smile against his shoulder. "Scorpion never fails, remember?"

If anyone could make him believe that, it was certainly her. "Okay."


	24. 197

Five minutes of silence.

The genius wasn't exactly one to share his feelings after sex—it would be absurd for Paige to expect that from him—but he had been quiet much longer than usual, and she was beginning to worry that she'd said or done something to make him uncomfortable.

"Walter?"

He shifted sideways on the bed, keeping one arm draped loosely over her shoulders as he glanced down at her. "Hm?"

Paige lightly traced a pattern on his chest with the tips of her fingers, embarrassed over how insecure she suddenly felt despite the intimacy of what they'd just shared. She certainly couldn't find anything to complain about, but physical interaction was a sensitive topic for Walter, and it had taken her some time to figure out what his limits were. Perhaps she'd unknowingly overstepped one. "Are you okay? You're…quiet."

"I'm fine," he responded automatically, blinking as if he didn't understand the question. Paige stiffened in his arms, well aware of what the word _fine_ meant to him, and he tightened his grip on her shoulder, rubbing his thumb over her bare skin. "Sorry," Walter said quietly, offering her a weak but genuine smile that helped her unwind slightly. "I mean…yes. I'm okay. It's just…"

He trailed off, but Paige sensed from the expression on his face—eyebrows furrowed, lips pressed together—that he was considering how to proceed. "You don't have to tell me," she insisted, not wanting to press too hard. Paige knew it was taxing for him to explain his thought processes to her, but he always tried if she asked him to. "I just wanted to make sure you were al—."

"It's still a lot," he mumbled before she'd finished. Clearing his throat, he released Paige and straightened himself into a seated position on the bed. The liaison followed, pulling the sheets up over her chest as she propped herself against the oversize feather pillows and tucked her legs underneath her. Once they were settled, Walter turned his attention to the opposite wall and continued, "I've adjusted to most things, but, uh, sometimes it's still overwhelming. In a good way, I think. And I n-need time to recover. I know that's strange, but..."

Paige shook her head fervently, relief flooding through her. "It's not strange. It's sweet." She smoothed her right palm over his shoulder, pressing her lips along the same path her hand had taken. The liaison smiled as Walter shivered under the contact. "I love that you can still have such a strong reaction after the hundreds of times we've been together. It, uh…it makes me feel loved."

"There have not been _hundreds_ of occasions yet," Walter said in the even, matter-of-fact tone he used to recite facts. "It's—."

He stopped abruptly, his dark eyes flitting to hers nervously before he turned away.

"What?"

"Nothing?" Walter answered uncertainly, fidgeting with the edge of the gray blanket on his lap. Paige squinted, the pieces slow to connect in her mind until—

She giggled, biting her lip to stifle full-blown laughter. "You've been counting, haven't you?"

"No," he protested, but Paige's obvious disbelief caused him to cave. "Sort of. I don't mean to, it's just…is it weird?"

Walter had always viewed being _weird_ as a detriment, no matter how frequently Paige assured him that it was part of what drew her and others to him. Part of what made him so fascinating. At the very least, their time together had never been boring.

"I guess it's not that surprising," she shrugged. "You remember everything numerically."

"Yes, but I…I don't want to make you feel like…" There was a hint of distress in his voice, even though Paige clearly wasn't put off by the news. He opened his mouth and shut it abruptly, the words stuck on his tongue, and she rubbed her hand up and down his arm, breathing deeply in hopes that he would follow her lead and relax. "Like I was approaching this analytically," he finished eventually, a relieved sound escaping his lips.

"Walter, your analytical ability has accomplished some incredible things." Paige slid closer to him, tilting her head up to whisper provocatively in his ear. "And I don't just mean at work."

The genius's cheeks flushed. Paige knew she shouldn't work so hard to fluster him, but his reactions were nothing short of adorable.

"So how many times?" the liaison asked, and Walter's forehead creased as he adjusted to the turn in conversation. He seemed hesitant, but sensing Paige's genuine curiosity, he obliged.

"Including oral sex?"

"Yes. Other…completed activities included."

"What about that time with—."

"Definitely include that," she interrupted eagerly.

Walter thought for a moment, his head resting back against the headboard. "193."

Paige grinned. Then she snickered. Then she burst into laughter, placing a hand on his chest for stability.

"What?" he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.

"Nothing, it's just…" She inhaled deeply, catching her breath. "You mean after four more times we'll be at 197?"

"Yes, why?" Walter's blank expression transformed into a grimace as the source of her hysterics dawned on him. "Oh. Very funny."

"I'm sorry," she said unapologetically, wiping away the tears that had gathered around the rims of her eyes. Despite Walter's exceptional intelligence—or, if she was being honest, because of it—Paige enjoyed his rare moments of earnest confusion. She finally pulled herself together and twisted her lips into a smirk. "So?"

Walter let out a small sigh of exasperation, admitting defeat in the face of Paige's subtle hints and relentless teasing. "So?"

Paige rolled her eyes, using her fingers on his skin to push him playfully. "So, are you up for the challenge, Walter O'Brien?"

"Now?"

She lifted and dropped her shoulders, using her free hand to smooth back a section of tousled hair that kept falling in her face. "Why not?" Paige pushed herself onto her knees and allowed her palm to travel up his chest to the side of his neck. "We've got the place all to ourselves."

They both took a moment to appreciate the silence in the garage. Barring any international emergencies, nothing would interrupt their night together. Paige adjusted her legs so she was hovering over Walter and traced her thumbs gently along his cheekbones. Smiling, she leaned in until their lips were millimeters apart and—

"What happens after we reach 197?" Walter asked suddenly, causing her to pull back in surprise. The concern in his expression left her torn between laughter and alarm until he said, "Are you going to stop having sex with me?"

Paige curled her bottom lip under as she beamed, affection rushing through her chest and making her heart race. He wasn't smooth, he didn't understand her banter, he would never flirt the way she expected. And she was certain she'd never love another man the way she loved him.

"On the contrary," Paige said confidently, hooking her arms around his neck and settling against his chest until there was no space between them. His hands wrapped around her waist to support her, rubbing small circles into the skin that made her tingle. "We're going to do what we do best. Set a new goal," she trailed her lips over his jawline until she reached his earlobe, nipping it gently with her teeth, "and _don't stop_ until we reach it."

Walter's reaction to her words was immediate and unmistakable. He yanked her down to him with such force that it stole her breath, capturing her lips as one palm cradled the back of her head to keep her in place.

When he pulled back a minute later, his eyes were nearly black. Paige sighed breathlessly, a thrill pulsing through her in anticipation of what was coming next. "Challenge accepted."


	25. Lightning

The universe was against him.

That was a preposterous thought, obviously. The universe had no stake in his relationship with Paige. But every time he'd tried to get a moment alone with her on this case, they'd been shot at, driven off the road, and nearly blown up. Two days since she returned from Lake Tahoe and he had barely gotten fifteen words in, and certainly not the three he needed to say. It wasn't hard to believe that a force greater than himself was rooting for Tim.

And now they were back in Los Angeles and Walter was so exhausted he thought he might not wake up tomorrow, but it was oddly quiet when he came back out of the kitchen, and the sudden realization that he and Paige were finally alone stopped him in his tracks.

She was sitting at her desk, looking drained but still better than him, nose buried in a mountain of paperwork. _This is a bad time. I shouldn't._ Walter kicked himself for the thought. If he waited any longer, he was going to lose his chance entirely. He wasn't so foolish as to think that Paige would hold out forever. She was, clearly and rightfully, already tired of waiting for him.

"Paige?" He sounded awkward and uncertain, like a nervous high schooler about to ask her to a dance. Presumably. He'd already graduated high school before he developed any interest in women. "I was wondering if you had a few minutes to, uh, discuss something."

The liaison didn't look up at him until the last word, blinking as if he'd drawn her out of her thoughts. She brushed her hair lazily away from her face before turning her attention back to the document in her hand. "Can we handle it tomorrow? I want to finish these and get out of here."

"Of course," he answered reluctantly, and although Paige looked relieved, Walter felt a surge of panic. It couldn't wait. He couldn't put this off again, or one day he'd be eighty years old, standing in this garage and still trying to get her attention. "A-actually, I'd really prefer to address it now. Please."

Paige sighed, and although Walter understood that she was irritated with him, he couldn't help but find the sound endearing. After a few seconds, the genius realized that he was simply staring at her, suppressing a small smile, while she watched him expectantly. "What?" she finally asked. "Are you worried about Toby and Happy? Because they seem to be working it out."

Walter furrowed his eyebrows, thrown by the mention of his heartbroken friends. Seeing their courtship implode had been one motivating factor in his decision to let Paige leave for Lake Tahoe, only serving to fortify his conviction that workplace romances were unsustainable. But she wasn't wrong. Although the first day was tense, working together on a high-stakes mission appeared to have given Happy and Toby a starting point through which to reestablish open communication. Perhaps they weren't quite as doomed as he predicted.

"N-no," Walter fumbled, suddenly even less sure of what he planned to say than before. "I mean, yes. I am worried," he added, knowing that Paige would appreciate some display of concern toward their colleagues, "but that's not what I meant. I'd like to talk about…you."

Paige sat up straighter in her chair, crossing her legs in front of her. Walter was temporarily distracted by the movement until she said, "Did I do something wrong on the case?"

"What? No." She thought he was upset with her? He was bungling this impressively. _Just spit it out._ "Not just you. Um, you a-and me." For a man with a 197 IQ, his vocabulary was sorely lacking at the moment. But he'd already stepped over the line and had no choice but to continue tripping through the rest of his speech as Paige sat there, looking confused. "When I called you to come back to the garage, I wasn't here. I was…I was eighty-six miles from your hotel. I needed to talk to you then, but we were interrupted."

"Oh," she said after a second, leaning forward in her chair and resting her elbows on the desk in front of her. "What was so important that you would drive all the way out there? I didn't even want to drive there."

Neither had he, after being awake for thirty-six hours straight, after dealing with the emotional fallout of Collins and Toby's proposal and Happy leaving—in hindsight, it was remarkably dangerous for him to have been behind the wheel at all—but at the time, he'd felt nothing but adrenaline in his system. "Before you left, uh, you asked if…if I thought you should stay. And I realized that I should have said yes."

"To help Happy and Toby."

"No," Walter said again. He was starting to sound like a broken record. If efficient communication was so important to him, why was it this difficult to get to the point? "Partially. But mostly because I…" _Say it before she cut you off and leaves again._ "I didn't want you to go. Uh, with Tim. I didn't want you to go with Tim. I'd planned to use the tickets for you and me, if you wanted to come, but I talked myself out of it." Paige's eyes widened, and Walter rushed out his next words in one long breath. "Toby yelled at me, which was justified. It was a mistake to tell you to leave. I should have told you the truth, t-that I wanted to be with you, but I…"

Paige shook her head, and Walter trailed off, his already weak voice evaporating into the air. "Whatever you were going to say, just…don't," she murmured, running her hands lightly over her face. "I don't know where this is coming from, but I can't deal with it tonight. Okay? I think we both just need some sleep, and then we can come in tomorrow and forget about…whatever's happening right now."

Walter frowned. That wasn't the reaction he expected. "Paige, I know I don't express myself well. Perhaps you don't understand what I'm trying to—."

"Trust me, Walter, I understand." She pushed herself away from her desk and stood up in one quick motion, seeming a little less tired and a lot more aggravated now. "Seeing me with Tim bothers you. You haven't wanted me this whole time, but now this situation has activated your jealousy, and you want to step in." Paige glanced up at the ceiling, huffing out a breath. "This is so typical. I never said anything while you were dating Linda. I respected your decision. But you can't respect mine?"

Well, he'd really done it now.

"Of course I respect your decision, Paige. I always respect your decisions." That wasn't strictly true, but he respected her, and he had gotten better about not interfering with her personal life. Well, present circumstances excluded. "Would you just let me—."

"You don't get to keep me from moving on," she snapped, the quiet contempt in her voice a thousand times worse than if she had just screamed at him. "You don't own me, Walter. You can't just come in here and try to manipulate me every time you feel threatened."

He had honestly planned to approach this calmly, rationally, but they were both running on a lack of sleep and two years' worth of buried emotions, so it wasn't exactly surprising when his rebuttal was less than eloquent. "What do you want me to say, Paige?" He raked his fingers through his hair, gripping it tightly. "That seeing you together is a nightmare? That I hate knowing Tim can give you everything I can't? All true. I've pretended it doesn't bother me, I've _told_ myself it doesn't bother me, but it does. It bothers me so much that I wish I could shut everything out and go back to the person I was before I met you. But I can't." Taking a shaky step back, Walter began to pace near her desk, unable to make eye contact with her. "Now I'm stuck between being the person that I should be, the man who would know what to do, and the person I used to be, who didn't care. So if you know what I'm supposed to do right now, Paige, please tell me. Because I have no idea."

Startled by his own outburst, Walter gradually slowed to a stop, keeping his gaze locked on the floor. For a long time—he couldn't think over the sound of blood rushing in his ears—neither of them moved, or spoke, or reacted in any way. The genius had a pretty good idea what Paige might do, though, and the silence was infinitely preferable.

"I'm sorry," she said eventually, her words almost too faint to hear. Walter glanced over at her impulsively, but she was focused intently on the top of her desk, her hands gripping the edge. She cleared her throat and continued more loudly, "I want the record to state that I'm still mad at you. But you were trying to open up to me and I laid into you. That's not fair, not after I've pushed you to grow emotionally. So I'm sorry."

Walter stayed silent, giving himself a moment to process this new shift in the conversation. Nothing was working out the way he imagined, although if he'd learned anything from Paige, it was that life typically didn't, and such unpredictability was not always negative. "I'm sorry too," he said when he could speak again. "I shouldn't have dropped this on you all at once. I just didn't know how to say it. I never want you to feel as if I'm attempting to control you, or…"

"I know that's not what you meant," Paige reassured him, finally tilting up her head to look at him. "Sometimes I forget that you're not Drew. He wanted us when he wanted us, and then he didn't. He always showed up just when I was done. And it's, uh…it's hard to separate the past and the present, occasionally."

Walter chafed at the comparison, but he'd brought it on himself, so the only thing he could do now was what Drew never managed to: act like an adult. "Paige, I know I never should have let things get this far. If you've moved on with Tim, then that's fair, I guess. But I couldn't let you go without t-trying."

Another heavy silence filled the garage until Paige circled around her desk, maintaining a few feet of distance from Walter. But he supposed it was a good sign that she'd removed one barrier between them. "Tim and I aren't dating. We weren't even dating when we left for Tahoe."

The air rushed out of his lungs and Walter lost confidence in his ability to stand for a moment. _Oh, thank God._ "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Because it was none of your business," she said bluntly, crossing her arms over her chest. The gesture was meant to look intimidating, but he sensed that she was subconsciously attempting to protect herself. Walter found the idea that she needed to protect herself from _him_ unpalatable. "Does that change things?"

What did Paige expect that _would_ change, aside from his level of anxiety? "I don't understand."

"If you knew that you weren't in immediate danger of losing me to Tim, would you still have told me that you wanted to be with me?" She was watching him closely now, and Walter grew nervous again, wondering if she might see something in his expression that would dissuade her from listening to him. "Or would you have insisted that we needed to bury our feelings forever?"

_Our feelings._ That had to mean she was still experiencing them too, didn't it? He decided it was better to seek clarification later. Right now, she'd asked him a question, and he was scrambling to find the right answer.

"I'll admit that Tim's arrival was…a catalyst, of sorts." He shifted his weight, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "I can't adequately predict what would have happened if he hadn't joined the team. But I can unequivocally say that my feelings for you existed long before that happened. You already knew that, perhaps better than I did."

Was that the right thing to say? He couldn't tell by looking at her. Walter knew his declaration thus far had been pretty short of romantic, but if there were any words that conveyed the extent to which she changed everything, he'd never heard them. There were some that came close, though.

"I always knew t-that I was attracted to you, that I enjoyed spending time with you, that I felt comfortable when you touched me…" he continued, not waiting for her response just yet, "but it wasn't until recently that I understood the larger picture. I didn't realize that those elements of our relationship—and uh, the depth of them—were what constituted the emotion of love. All this time, I was…I was in l-love with you and I didn't know."

The overwhelming relief of that admission, combined with Paige's breathy recitation of his name, nearly pulled him under. He half-expected her to slap him, but whatever happened now, at least he'd gotten to say it once. Once would have to be enough.

"Are you okay?" Paige asked, mercifully coming closer and resting her hand on his upper arm, rubbing small circles with her thumb. He nodded. "You waited a long time to tell me that."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"You can stop apologizing, Walter."

He didn't feel like he apologized nearly enough. For denying the existence of something that was important to her. For lashing out at her because he couldn't address his jealousy. For getting close and disappearing instead of taking care of her like he'd really wanted to. But if she gave him the chance, he would remedy that. "Okay."

Paige dropped her hand, to his disappointment, but she didn't move away. He figured there was still some semblance of hope. He had to, because waiting for her response was agonizing, and the ghost of a smile on her face had started to fade. "I believe you, Walter, but after everything that's happened with us, I just…" she exhaled, briefly closing her eyes. "I wonder if you'll still feel this way tomorrow. Or next week, or next year. If you'll still want this. Want me."

There wasn't a day since they met that he hadn't wanted her. But he didn't say that. Walter was well aware that he'd let her down before, and even though he had plenty of justifications for his actions, Paige didn't want to hear them.

"I'm not saying no," she clarified, sensing his insecurity. It was a start. "But you had this major realization, and you want everything to change right away. It's too much. Just take some time, okay? Take time to process all of this, and make sure that acting on it is really what you want. I need to know that you're going to stick around this time, because if you aren't, Walter, then I'm just going to end up hurt and I don't think I can go through that again."

The last thing Walter wanted was more time apart. But the past two years had been on his terms, and he nearly ruined any chance he had with her. Perhaps operating on her terms would produce better results.

"Okay." He leaned toward her, and her eyebrows raised slightly, her breathing becoming faster and shallower. If he closed the distance between them and kissed her right now, there was a chance she wouldn't push him away. As tempted as he was to test his theory, though, Walter knew he had a long way to go before he earned that right. "I know what I want, Paige. But if you need me to prove it to you, then I will."

* * *

As he signed the last form and looked up to an empty garage, Walter nearly regretted agreeing to finish the paperwork from their case and sending Paige home to Ralph. But he knew he'd done the right thing. The first of many right things he would need to do if he wanted to win Paige over.

He wasn't going anywhere. She didn't have to worry about that. But considering his extensive track record of self-sabotage, Walter knew he would need some assistance. Toby was a serious romantic—much more so than a woman like Happy required—but he was going through enough already, and he was bound to embarrass Walter somehow. Cabe and Sylvester hadn't quite moved on from their past experiences with love, and he felt uncomfortable tapping them for help. So Walter grabbed his cell phone from the desk and hesitantly pressed the number for the only person that was left.

"Dad? Hey. I'm sorry to call so late, but, uh…I need your advice."


	26. Signs

"You didn't kiss him like you kissed me."

There was a logical lead-up to that statement in his head. He couldn't stop himself from flashing back to the moment he arrived at the hotel, wide awake even though he'd had the longest day of his life, only to find Paige fused to Tim. There was no way to ignore it, so he settled for analyzing it, hoping to gain some insight into whether or not she had truly moved on.

But contrasting that with their kiss—awkward, messy, intense, her hands doing all the work his couldn't—had given him a bit of an epiphany. He'd never meant to say it out loud, but he did and now Paige was staring at him like he lost his mind, which was possible. He _had_ been awake for nearly seventy-two hours.

He muttered it quietly, too, mostly just to himself, but Paige was clearly standing just close enough in the kitchen to hear him. Her car had sustained some damage during the case and he offered to take her home, which Tim reluctantly accepted since he had to wake up in four hours for a physical exam. Ralph passed out in the backseat, and Walter carried him up the stairs and tucked him into bed while Paige brewed a pot of coffee just so he'd have enough energy to make it home.

They weren't really talking about anything, just standing on opposite sides of the counter and staring intently at the coffeemaker. Paige was a little tense around him ever since he'd gotten on the plane in Tahoe. He knew she didn't buy his story of going to see the festival, but she didn't quite know what to think, and there wasn't exactly ample opportunity to set the record straight.

And now… _now_ , when they were alone, and Ralph was asleep and Tim wasn't going to come waltzing in unexpectedly, _this_ would have been a great time for Walter to ask her to talk, but until he had his moment of brilliance and blurted it out like a child with no verbal filter, he'd been deathly silent. He still wanted to tell her—he needed to tell her like he needed air, which also seemed to be in short supply right now—but all he could think about was the distance she had been consciously putting between them all day. Nothing felt right, nothing was the way it was supposed to be, and now to cap it off, he'd said the most genuinely wrong and confusing thing possible.

Paige just blinked for few seconds, tightening the grip of her fingers on the edge of the counter and averting her gaze. "How did you…" She stopped. "You saw us? At the hotel?"

Well, it looked like they were having this conversation after all. Walter considered telling her to forget he'd said anything, forget the coffee and just forget every event that happened after she left for Tahoe with Tim. But he couldn't go back. Not from this. "Uh…yes."

Her eyes narrowed, but she was still watching the machine like it was going to give her the answers she wanted. "So you were…spying on us?"

"What? No." Walter cleared his throat, sounding surprised by the accusation even though in retrospect it wasn't too far off. "I went to the hotel and I…I saw you. So I left."

"Okay, back up." Paige finally twisted around, resting her elbows on the breakfast bar and bringing her hands up to her temples. "Walter, maybe I'm just braindead right now, but I don't understand the timeline of events here. I need you to start at the beginning. You gave Tim and I the tickets, and then decided that you wanted to go to the festival and stay at the same hotel? Why wouldn't you just keep all of your arrangements, then?"

_Just tell the truth, Walter, what the hell are you waiting for? A sign?_ "You're right, it doesn't make sense because…that's not what happened." Crossing his arms over his chest, he rocked slightly on his heels and alternated between glancing up at her and staring at his feet. "I told you there was another reason I drove to Tahoe. I didn't go for the festival. I went to tell you…uh, to ask you…not to be with Tim."

That was enough for Paige to finally drop her hands and make eye contact with him, raising her brows. She was looking at him like he was speaking another language, and _why on earth_ had he chosen this moment to tell her? Like there hadn't been enough bombs dropped today.

"Are you serious?" He thought that might be a rhetorical question, but he wasn't sure if she expected him to answer until she continued without waiting for him. "You encourage Tim to ask me out—yeah, I know about that—and then you tell us to go away for the weekend, just so you can swoop in and stop it? What kind of twisted game is that?"

A game? He never realized she would see it that way. Walter wasn't particularly fond of games, but he knew they were supposed to be fun, and watching her with Tim had been anything but. "That's not what I meant," he insisted, the fire in her expression almost more off-putting than the missile they'd evaded earlier. "I wasn't just going to interfere with your relationship and then leave, Paige. I went to Tahoe for _you_. To tell you t-that I made a mistake and see if there was a chance that you might…you know."

She was frustrated with him. That was an emotion he'd learned to identify, since it was so often directed at him, but it wasn't always useful since he still didn't know what to do when he observed it. Paige straightened herself up and walked around the counter, meeting him at the corner where it connected with the living room and glaring up at him.

"Why did you have to drive seven hours to say that, Walter?" she snapped. It had all the venom of shouting, but she didn't want to wake up her sleeping son. "I was _right here_. I stood right in front of you and I gave you every opportunity to keep me here and you told me to leave."

Walter swallowed, thinking all the wrong things now that she was closer to him, because he should have been trying to address her concerns but all he could focus on was how good it would feel to melt into her.

"And now!" Paige hissed, taking another step toward him until they were impossibly close, and they were both delirious and overwhelmed and he should just walk away, save them both from trouble, but how could he? "I'm standing right here, _again_ , and you still can't tell me what you want! If you would just—."

He kissed her.

_This_...this was stupid and reckless and probably going to make her very angry, but she'd been practically daring him to do it, and he regretted the last time he failed to read between the lines, so here they were.

Walter's hands had gripped her waist to crush her against him, and now they were trailing up her sides, over her tank top but under the flimsy sweater she'd thrown on. This wasn't exactly the romantic way he had imagined telling her, but she certainly wasn't fighting him as his lips pressed forcefully against hers. Her fingers were in his hair, on his face, just like the first time, but somehow even more frantic and desperate.

Through the haze of whatever sensation was taking over his body as he clutched at her, the genius felt Paige moving backward and traveled with her. The air was knocked out of his lungs as she pushed him onto the couch and settled on top of him, recapturing him before he'd even recovered. She moaned deep in the back of her throat as his palms danced along the outside of her thighs, up to her waist again and just under the hem of her shirt. Her skin was blazing and Walter couldn't imagine how he hadn't passed out yet from the stifling heat and lack of oxygen.

He wanted this and he wanted her, forever, but this was frenzied and muddled and she wasn't his yet. Walter needed to know, needed to make sure that she wasn't going to sober up later and call this a mistake and tell him to leave—he would deserve it, but he didn't think he'd survive it. "Paige," he gasped, ducking his head as she reached for him again and resting his forehead against her shoulder. "Paige, stop."

When she pulled back, he could see the hurt in her eyes and she just shook her head, looking disappointed. She pressed against his chest, starting to climb off the couch, and he had to grab her waist firmly to keep her pinned to him. Paige stared down at him, the darkness in her eyes sending a fresh wave of heat through his body.

"Stay," he said simply, and she relaxed slightly back into his arms. If she'd thought for even a second that he wanted to—or would be able to—walk away from her after that, he'd screwed up fiercely. "I just…Tim…" Walter wasn't capable of full sentences at the moment, so he hoped she would understand. "Are you…?"

_He_ wasn't even quite sure what he was asking her, but her features softened and she linked her fingers behind his neck, grazing his skin with her thumb. "Like you said. It's not the same with him." Uncertainly, she slid her hand to his cheek and cradled his jaw. "You and me…?"

Walter nodded, and Paige smiled softly before claiming his lips again, gripping the collar of his shirt in her fists. Walter marveled that just like that, they'd managed to convey more honesty than they had with millions of words over the past two years. He wasn't even sure that she'd heard him when he mumbled that he loved her, for good measure, but he wasn't concerned.

One way or another, she would know.


	27. Shelter

He'd finally done it.

After several near-misses, Walter had finally succeeded in driving her away. And not a moment too soon, because he was just starting to believe that he might not ruin a relationship with her after all.

It wasn't the worst fight they'd ever had, but it was the worst since they started dating officially. Over Ralph, as their arguments usually were. Walter was pushing to involve the young genius further in Scorpion's missions, but Paige was adamant that he was still too young and not ready for any of the potentially dangerous field work the rest of the team engaged in. Even though he knew that she was simply protecting her son, Walter had accused her of holding Ralph back because she still didn't truly understand him and maybe never would.

Paige muttered something like _I can't do this right now_ —it was still blurry, even in his eidetic memory—and Walter had no idea what to say as she picked up her bag and walked out of the garage, so he stayed silent. He couldn't even remember, now, why he'd been so stubborn. For the most part, he respected Paige's parenting decisions and only offered advice when it was solicited. But Ralph had so much to give, and as Scorpion's cases became more and more complex, Walter recognized that the young genius could make a significant impact on the world. He thought Paige wanted that.

Walter rubbed his hands over his face and forced himself to sit up in the bed. Between replaying their exchange in his head and reaching for the phone to call her—only to talk himself out of it every time, reasoning that she wanted space—there had been little opportunity for sleep. The genius could easily stay up for three or four days while engrossed in a project, but the emotional exhaustion that accompanied his physical weariness this time was nothing short of painful.

He stumbled into the bathroom, inhaling sharply as he splashed cold water over his skin. Walter was content, for once, to stay under the sheets all day and seclude himself from the world, but the team would be in soon and he looked like he'd been run over by a truck, as Toby would no doubt put it. He finished his morning routine quickly and efficiently, moving on to search for clothes and grateful that the neutral palette of his wardrobe allowed him to dress without too much thought. He'd just finished fastening the button on a pair of gray pants when Paige knocked on the door and called out, "Walter? Can I come in?"

The genius froze. Paige had been in his loft nearly every day for months; there was nothing inherently nerve-wracking about that. But suddenly all he could picture was her glossy eyes and the disappointed way she shook her head just before she left, and Walter didn't think he could handle seeing her that way again.

"Walter," she said again from the other side of the door, sounding vaguely frustrated now. "I'm coming in, okay?"

His eyes flew to the floor as the knob twisted and she stepped inside the loft. He hadn't realized how guilty he felt until she was in front of him, and it mingled uncomfortably with his relief at her return to the garage. All he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and apologize profusely, but his uncertainty seemed to paralyze him and prevent any type of action.

With some effort, he brought his gaze up to meet hers. Other than the slightly darkened circles under her eyes, there were no markers that she was particularly distraught or angry. In fact, she was looking at him with the same concern he'd seen in her expression hundreds of times before. Paige closed the rest of the distance between them and reached down to take his hand, massaging it lightly with her thumb. "You didn't sleep at all, did you?"

"Not really," he mumbled. Walter focused on the feel of her hand on his, which had brought him comfort on a number of occasions even before they were together, and wasn't failing now. "You came back."

Paige's face fell and she brought her other palm to his cheek, tilting his head up to align with hers. " _Of course_ I did," she said emphatically, offering him a weak smile. "You really thought I wouldn't come back?"

Walter shrugged. "Not everyone does."

He wasn't searching for sympathy—the genius wasn't nearly adept enough at understanding emotions to manipulate them—but his words appeared to strike Paige, and she swallowed hard before pushing her weight onto her toes and pressing her lips against his. It was soft and tender, an expression of an apology that neither one had figured out how to offer yet.

"Walter," she sighed when she pulled away, squeezing his hand once more. "I didn't leave last night because I didn't want to be around you. I left because I was upset and I was afraid one of us might say something that we couldn't take back. I just needed time to cool down."

The genius processed her explanation and then nodded to show that he understood. In the past, he'd responded so rarely to emotional stimuli that any disagreement was either settled with logic or—in a more serious case, as with Cabe and Baghdad—grounds for a complete termination of the relationship. The nuances of anything in the middle were still lost on him, but right now, he found himself grateful that the liaison did not share his black and white view of the world.

Paige was quiet, giving him time to formulate a response, and Walter cleared his throat as he debated how to express himself. Finally, he said, "Watching you, uh, walk away…I d-didn't like that."

"It didn't feel right to me either," she admitted, dropping her fingers from his face and using them to rake back her hair. "I'm sorry. Not just about the fight, although I stand by what I said. But I wasn't thinking clearly, and I shouldn't have just stormed out the way I did. This is all new to you." Paige tilted her head, furrowing her eyebrows as she glanced up at Walter. "It's a terrible feeling, wondering if someone is going to come back. I know."

Walter's fist clenched as he thought about all the times that Drew had probably disappeared, leaving Paige scared and alone. The genius didn't know much about relationships, but he knew he'd never do that to her. He drew in a breath to calm himself and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "I-I'm sorry too. I was rude and, uh, overstepped my boundaries. I…I w-wouldn't have blamed you if you didn't come back."

Paige bit her lip, like she was trying to keep her composure, and Walter kicked himself for upsetting her again. He hated to see her distressed over anything, but he supposed that they couldn't have a meaningful connection without conversations that would stir up emotions in both of them, so he'd simply need to learn how to navigate this new territory as he had been doing since the day she came into his life.

"Hey," she murmured softly. "I love you. You believe that?"

Believe? It was difficult enough to believe sometimes that he'd fallen in love with anyone, let alone that the same person would reciprocate. But Walter knew she did. He felt it from her every day. "Yes."

"Good. I need you to remember that when things get tough, because that's what's going to make me come back, always. We've fought so hard to be together, and I'm not going to throw that away over one stupid fight."

The genius exhaled, feeling fifty pounds lighter. Even after all this time, her ability to comfort and reassure him was astounding. "Okay." He kissed her forehead before lacing their fingers together and meeting her eyes hesitantly. "Regarding, um, what we were discussing…"

"I think you may have been right," Paige interrupted quickly, surprising him. "At least partially. I figured that…maybe…we could make a list? Agree on some ways that Ralph can contribute more, without endangering his safety."

Walter almost chuckled. He could handle a logical breakdown of variables. Perhaps they might discover a calmer, more efficient way to address their disagreements in the future. He hoped so, because he would be happy never to fight with Paige that way again.

"Yeah. I would like that."


	28. Inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this story is entirely a monologue in Paige's head. I feel like a lot of people are frustrated with her for staying with Tim, and as much as watching them together iggs me out, her dilemma becomes more understandable to me the more I think about it. (Waige forever, though, obviously.)

She's dating Tim.

Walter is in love with her.

Walter is married to Happy.

It's a lot to process, and Paige has mostly succeeded in coping by not thinking about it at all.

The memories rush back to her constantly—Ralph says something is "scientifically interesting," and all she can picture is baked Alaska; she sees the red shirt she wore that day in her closet, and is torn between throwing it out and holding on to it forever; Walter rubs his hands to ease the muscles after coding for hours, and she thinks about how desperately he imagined holding on to hers. But she always pushes them down. She sees the ridiculousness in doing exactly what she's always been frustrated with Walter for doing—hiding, ignoring the facts that don't fit into a specific narrative—but it's all she knows how to do when the truth is so overwhelming.

Because Paige isn't sure _what_ the truth is, still. The genius's words were startling, heartbreaking, beautiful…and she can't figure out if he meant them. Her instinct says he did, because even a hypoxic and hallucinating Walter would only want to state facts. But it doesn't seem that simple anymore. Neither of them has been stating facts for a long time—not since the weather balloon, at least. Not since their feelings were labeled inconvenient and destabilizing. And certainly not since they'd entered into relationships with people vastly different from each other.

Walter hasn't remembered what he said in that capsule. Paige questions if the same sentiment was what he drove seven hours to share in Lake Tahoe—what he was frantically trying to tell her before the missile interrupted them—but his complete and utter silence makes her wonder if his subconscious is the only place he can admit his love for her. There's a significant chance that he's never connected the dots consciously, never really accepted it, and if that's true, then nothing has changed.

Because Walter has loved her for months, a year, even, in _some_ way. She can see it in his eyes when he looks at her, can see it every time he risks his life to protect her. But she's also watched him fight it, bury it, deny it over and over again, and Paige has realized that he doesn't _want_ to love her. Somehow that hurts worse than if he'd never paid her any attention at all.

The liaison has already dedicated far too much energy to imagining what being with Walter would feel like. It usually happens when she takes a break from paperwork and looks up at his desk, or when she's in bed at night and the silence encourages her mind to wander. She doesn't imagine cheesy romantic gestures, like in the movies, because she knows that isn't who he is. She pictures small glances behind the backs of the team. She pictures eating dinner with Walter and Ralph while they tell her about projects they're working on. Despite her best efforts, she can't help but picture tasting him again, his hands on her body, his unyielding concentration focused on studying every part of her.

Paige loses herself in those thoughts, even though she knows she's just torturing herself. It's incredibly unfair to everyone—her, Walter, Tim. But she craves that intensity, that all-encompassing emotion, that _passion_ just the same.

And yet she learned years ago, after Drew, that passion isn't enough to keep a relationship together. Her courtship with the baseball player burned bright and fast until his next passion took over, and without more than a fleeting thought, he'd left her and Ralph to fend for themselves. Paige doesn't believe that Walter would abandon Ralph so easily—their connection is one in a million, and he's always been able to express his affection for her son quite clearly—but that doesn't mean there won't be another passion to replace _her_ in his life.

Fundamentally, passion and stability don't go together, and Paige knows she has to choose. It's clear that Walter's never envisioned himself with a family, never planned for or desired that responsibility. She doesn't blame him; his sense of duty lies elsewhere, and she respects everything he's done to fulfill it. But Paige does want a family. She had one with just Ralph, for a while, and then with the team, but it's not quite enough to come home to anymore.

Tim offers her that stability. In fact, he offers her just about everything she's always thought she wanted, especially when she was struggling to raise her son on her own. A partner. Someone who shares her values, respects her, makes her feel safe and comfortable. He's attractive and he's attracted to her, and he never hides his feelings for her, always knows what to say to make her smile. Tim isn't afraid to commit to whatever they might have together. She doesn't dream about him the way she dreams about Walter, but she's convinced herself that it's a good thing, because she doesn't have to dream about things that are actually within her grasp.

He's safe, and when her life was in shambles, safe was all she wanted. The liaison had said something to Tim about _how nice it was to be around someone normal_ and those words haunt her because after a few years with Scorpion, Paige has been about as far from safe as she can be, and it's given her a dangerous taste for adventure. She acts mildly exasperated every time a case goes off the rails—and she feels genuine, deep fear when a member of the team is at risk—but she's really not sure anymore if _safe_ will satisfy her.

Paige still finds herself clinging to her relationship with Tim, though, even though she knows something isn't right. A lot of things aren't right. She doesn't want to date him simply because he wants to be with her, because he enjoys her company, because Walter has rejected her what feels like a hundred times and she needs to feel desired and beautiful.

But she also doesn't want to give it all up to chase Walter on the basis of delirious rambling and then kick herself when it crashes and burns, because she knew from the start that passion isn't enough and they never really had a chance in hell of making it work.

Approaching this situation logically would make everything so much easier, but the emotions that keep winning out are anything but. When Toby informs her, grimacing, of the team's new living arrangements, Paige feels sympathetic discomfort for the mechanic. She suppresses a laugh and considers how _awkward_ it'll be for the three of them to fight over mattress space and brushing their teeth and waking up at different hours in the morning. She commiserates silently over Happy having not one, but two concerned men now watching over her like hawks. She braces herself for the inevitable friction that will arise from cramming Walter and Toby's massive egos into a confined space.

And then, one night out of the blue, it occurs to her that she's _jealous_ and the thought drops on her like a brick. Happy doesn't want to sleep next to Walter, or watch him unwind in sweatpants and a T-shirt after a long case, or be an integral part of his life, every day…but Paige does. She wants to look behind the curtain and know him, _really_ know him, see all the parts of him that no one else does, and she doesn't realize how much she wants that until someone else has it.

She can't regret meeting Scorpion, but she does regret letting things get so far with its leading genius. She should never have held out hope for this long, never fooled herself into thinking that one day the timing might be right. Because now Paige loves him, and she knows that concept should startle her, but it doesn't. It's a truth she accepted a while ago, although she's not sure when—maybe in the weather balloon, or on the train, or when he was mourning Megan. The _when_ doesn't matter because it doesn't alter the fact that she is in love with Walter, and he's probably in love with her, and they are both screwed because of it.

Paige isn't sure what hidden well of self-control she tapped into after Walter came home from the hospital following the rocket incident, when she went up to his loft alone to give him pain meds, and his words were rushing through her and all she wanted, more than anything, was to kiss him until they'd both shed any traces of uncertainty.

But she didn't, because he didn't remember and he was injured and she was _with Tim_. She cringes at the memory of saying those words, too, to Toby. Even she heard how uncertain her voice sounded, like she was waiting for the psychologist to debate her. Waiting for someone to tell her that it's okay to give into what she's feeling, that she won't ruin everything for herself, for her son, for Walter, for Scorpion.

No one's going to give her that permission, though, least of all herself. Because it _will_ ruin everything. And so Paige has to keep following Walter's lead and burying it all, internalizing her desires, washing her mind clean of dreams that can't be realized. She has to devote herself to moving forward instead of looking back. She has to tell herself every day that this is for the best and the pain will disappear eventually.

She's just not sure how long she can keep believing it.


	29. Sins of the Mother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am writing all the things from Paige's perspective lately, but if the show won't tell me what she's thinking, I'll just have to make it up. I've been curious forever about Paige's family and I'm glad we're finally learning something. This is based on the upcoming appearance of Veronica Dineen, Paige's estranged mom, and what Paige revealed about her family in "Bat Poop Crazy." And since Toby is being a psychology ninja and everyone on the team is keeping secrets from Paige, I want someone to be straight with our favorite liaison and who better than her mother?

"Hold still."

Paige flinches, keeping her arm steady on the edge of the sink while her mother angles cold water over it from the faucet. The cut looks worse than it is; Toby stepped in to treat it but Veronica blocked him with a cryptic comment about how she'd _cleaned out plenty of wounds in my time, thank you,_ and wanted to take care of Paige herself.

It's almost a little absurd. For a moment, Paige is five again, scraping her knee while she rides her bike and crying for Veronica to fix it. She was much more squeamish as a child and it was only after Ralph was born that blood and other bodily fluids stopped fazing her. He had been extremely accident prone, a side effect of his unceasing curiosity and lack of awareness regarding his surroundings.

"Here." Veronica turns off the stream and reaches behind her for a clean blue kitchen towel, handing it to the liaison. Paige pats the area gently, feeling a bit of discomfort but nothing drastically worse than she'd faced in the past. After she received her first official paycheck from Scorpion, she'd spent a little under eighty dollars on an assortment of painkillers, bandages, and creams for rashes, bug bites, and burns. Her preparation proved to be well-founded, as she uses at least one of those items every week.

The older woman doesn't speak as she disinfects a pair of tweezers with rubbing alcohol and motions for Paige to sit across from her. She looks the same after fifteen years…her skin isn't quite as bright, maybe, but she's still thin, her hair hasn't changed, and her personality is as disarming as ever. The team had been charmed by her immediately—particularly Toby, who'd spent most of the case discussing various methods of behavioral reading with her. Veronica and Happy bonded over motorcycles, while Cabe was happy to have someone who understood his dated references. Sylvester appreciated the kind tone she used with him.

And Walter…he'd been staring over at Paige all day, as if he recognized that she was bothered by her mother's abrupt return to her life but didn't know how to ask her about it. Paige isn't sure how she would answer, even if he did.

The liaison swallows as Veronica removes a small piece of debris from Paige's wound and drops it onto a paper towel. She'd tripped in the woods and caught her skin on a branch; people had been shooting at them all day and she was bested by a twig. Her embarrassment is far more potent than the injury itself. Veronica retires the tweezers, satisfied that the area is clean, and unrolls a length of bandage, cutting it down with scissors.

"You're lucky," she says to break the silence. It's just the two of them in the garage since the rest of the team politely excused themselves to a nearby Greek restaurant and offered to bring back two meals. Tim needed some urging from Paige to join them, but she's in no mood for a _meet the parents_ dinner when the woman sitting across from her still feels like a stranger. "Your injuries could have been much worse."

Paige considers telling her mother about all the times she's been shot at, held hostage, thrown by explosions—just to see how she'll react. But giving Veronica any details about her life, personal or professional, seems overwhelming and she feels like if she shares anything, she'll have to share everything, and she doesn't know where to start.

Veronica pulls the bandage around Paige's hands, working quickly, and then slows down when she's ninety percent done, sending a quick glance up to the liaison. "I was watching you today. With your team."

Paige nods wordlessly. She's not surprised; her mother is excellent at picking up on cues, knowing what people are thinking, what they want. It's part of what makes her so dangerous.

"Do you usually risk your lives for each other?"

Veronica throws it out offhandedly, but there's genuine curiosity in her voice. Paige bites her lip, feeling a somewhat familiar swell in her chest. She's never had anyone willing to sacrifice anything for her, but with Scorpion she never questions it, she trusts them to come through for her and she never thinks twice about doing the same for them. "Yeah. That happens a lot around here."

The woman finishes wrapping Paige's cut and tucks the bandage in, rubbing the liaison's fingers with her own before letting go. That brief second of contact surprises Paige. It's not that her mother wasn't affectionate with her, growing up—it's just been such a long time and she's forgotten what it feels like to interact with either of her parents that way.

"They were all concerned when you were injured." She hesitates—Paige isn't used to seeing her mother hesitate over anything—before elaborating. "Your boss, particularly." The liaison's head snaps up, which is a mistake because now Veronica knows she's invested and wants to hear the rest of this sentence. "He seemed like he was going to break when you got hurt. And he doesn't strike me as a person who panics easily."

Paige draws her hand back toward her and gently massages her wrist with her thumb, feeling strangely torn because she doesn't want to discuss the team with Veronica but a small, insistent part of her thinks about how normal people _would_ be able to talk about these things with their mothers, and she wishes it was that easy. She settles for, "He's very protective of the team," and hopes they can leave it there.

Veronica doesn't believe her at all, clearly, and Paige knows she's in for it again. She's tired of being psychoanalyzed; it's exhausting to constantly guard her feelings because she knows everyone is trying to solve her like a puzzle, and if she wanted people to know what she was thinking, she would tell them.

"But he's more protective of you," Veronica offers, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. "And Ralph. You're not reacting to what I'm saying with any surprise or denial, which tells me that you already know he's different with you. "

"He's _different_ , that's for sure," Paige mutters under her breath before clearing her throat. She hasn't had anyone to talk to about Walter. She hasn't wanted anyone to talk to about Walter. It's easier to pretend everything is resolved if she doesn't verbalize all the decidedly unresolved feelings she's been juggling lately. But she's lying if she says that it's not tempting to confide in Veronica right now, let her into this one small piece of her life. "Yes, I know. He told me."

"And?"

"And…nothing. He doesn't exactly remember."

"Oh." Veronica nods her head understandingly. "He was drunk?"

Paige blinks. It's a logical assumption, she guesses, for someone that doesn't know Walter, but insane for anyone that does. "No, uh, he was in space."

She furrows her eyebrows. "Space."

"Not important, actually. We agreed to stay colleagues. And friends. That's…that's the end of it."

"You have plenty of friends, honey, but he's not one of them." There's something about the term _honey_ that brings back seventeen years of memories, makes Paige feel uncomfortable in her own skin for a moment. She should just make some excuse and leave now, but secretly she wants to know what this whole situation looks like from the outside in, so she stays planted in her chair. "He took this case for you, not for me. It's clear he'd do a lot for you."

_A lot. But not anything._ Walter will never hold back from protecting her and Ralph physically, no matter the cost to him. She's painfully aware of that and has been since the night on the train, probably even before then. It's all the other stuff he's never been willing to sacrifice.

She can feel the blood drain out of her face as another thought dawns on her. "Did you say anything to Walter about this?"

There was at least twenty minutes when they were in the car together, Paige remembers, and she couldn't hear their conversation over the comms and she just _really_ hopes Veronica hasn't gotten herself involved because she doesn't know how to undo that damage. "No," the older woman says and Paige exhales in relief. "And I wouldn't say anything to you, either, except that…I was hoping I would come here and see you happy. Genuinely happy. But you aren't."

Paige opens her mouth to argue, because in many ways she _is_ happy—she has a family, and an incredible son, and a job that she loves, and her happiness is not defined by one person, not anymore. But deep down she understands what Veronica is saying—that she's holding back, putting a wall between herself and the things she wants, and Paige honestly thought that her mother wouldn't know her after all this time, but maybe she's wrong.

"Yeah, well. I'm working on it."

"With Tim?"

Paige stiffens at the mention of her boyfriend's name, and the realization that he's barely crossed her mind during this conversation fills her with guilt. She made the decision to move forward with him, bring him into her and Ralph's world, but sometimes she finds herself pushing him away, both physically and mentally. The liaison insists that it's simply been a while and she needs to go slow, but there's more to it than that and Tim sees it even as he dutifully gives her space.

"Yes," Paige answers with about as much conviction as she's capable of generating. "He's, uh, he's nice. Gets along with Ralph. I like him."

Veronica presses her lips together, tapping her fingers on her knee, and Paige finds she's almost desperate to know what her mother is thinking even though she shouldn't care at all. "He seems like a good man."

The liaison smiles at that, because she may not know everything about Tim yet but she feels confident in making that statement, at least. "He is."

Veronica gathers the supplies on the table and gets up, crossing a few feet to the standing cabinet she retrieved them from. She latches the clasp on the first aid kit and it seems like the conversation is over, they've said everything there is to say, so Paige checks her bandage and then moves to vacate her seat. "You should get out now, then."

It's not what she's expecting her mother to say, at all, and for a beat she just stands there, unsure how to react. Even when she does find her voice again the only word she can manage is, "What?"

Veronica leans her weight on the cabinet and folds her arms over her chest, watching Paige evenly. "It's still early. You have time to bow out before he gets too committed. If he's a good man, you should let him down easy. Not drag it out."

"Let him…" Paige shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers. "I'm not trying to let him down, mom. We've only been dating a few months. Neither of us is sure how serious this is yet."

The older woman raises her eyebrows and drops them, and Paige recognizes a level of skepticism on her mother's face that she's never received from anyone, not even Happy. "He's serious, Paige. Serious enough for you to break his heart. You like him. Great. Have you ever seen a future where you love him?"

The liaison hasn't thought about a future with Tim at all—the prospect has always been too overwhelming. She's been taking it a day at a time, and she tells herself that it's because she's too busy with Ralph and Scorpion to make a real commitment, even in her head. That would be a lot more convincing if she'd never imagined her future with someone else, under all the same circumstances.

But the frustration that sparks at her mother's words is easier to handle than the uncertainty, so Paige gets _angry_ for the first time since Veronica appeared in the garage without warning. Her indifference dredges up too many things that Paige has tried to forget and she shoves her chair away from the table, scrambles up, rakes her hair off her face with one hand as her blood turns to ice.

"My personal life is not your business," she says sharply, a miniscule amount of relief hitting her as the words escape. "Your advice is to leave a good person who cares about me? Of course it is. Why would I be surprised by that? Dad loved you and you d _estroyed_ him. I had to pick up the pieces of that for years." All the emotions she's been tamping down during the case are rising and making it hard for her to breathe, and _God_ she just wants this day to be over. "Thanks for patching me up but you should go now."

Paige feels like she can't even think straight and her outburst just hangs in the air between them, neither one of them moving to back down first. She assumes her mother will walk away shortly—she excels at that—but instead Veronica steps back to the table and drops into her chair, letting Paige have the upper hand without giving her exactly what she asked for.

And they both know it'll only take a word for Cabe to come back and escort Veronica out, but Paige doesn't say anything, because this is her mother and she's torn—has been all day—over whether this should be a clean slate for them or the last time they ever see each other.

"I know you don't think we're anything alike," Veronica starts slowly, eyes focused on her hands as she twists them in her lap. "Fortunately, you didn't get everything from me. You seem…more stable. More selfless than I was." Her head tilts up and she smiles at Paige affectionately, but the liaison doesn't want to see it and lifts her stare toward the back wall. "But you are enough like me that I can tell you're about to repeat my mistakes. I recognize it in the way you look at him. You think that he'll be easy, he'll be good for you, and maybe he will. But you'll always want _more_ and you can't get that with him. The way you feel right now—like something is fundamentally missing—that won't ever go away."

Paige knows exactly what feeling Veronica is describing but she isn't sure she can accept that because it means she _is_ like her mother, and maybe she's doomed to leave just as much pain and destruction in her wake. She shudders at the thought of crushing another person the way her mother crushed her father and thinks she'd rather be alone her entire life than inflict that kind of damage.

"Maybe you want stability because I could never offer it to you," Veronica shrugs. "I don't know. But you've picked someone who seems safe and it's not so terrifying because their feelings are stronger than yours. Someone who you assume will make you happy because they're everything people tell you that you need and _should_ want. Trust me, Paige. I know. I did it too."

And then all at once the liaison realizes that Veronica is talking about her father, telling her where it had gone wrong, why she'd left, and Paige's vision blurs with tears. She isn't sure she can ever excuse or forgive her mother, but she understands what that constant, haunting blank space feels like, and Paige can't imagine wanting to feel that way for the rest of her life.

"I wouldn't begrudge you if you wanted something normal, Paige, but I don't think you would be here if you did." Veronica glances around the empty garage with appreciation, like she knows this is more Paige's home than her own apartment is. "Don't wait like I did, until your only two options are being unhappy or hurting a good person. I don't…I don't want you to be afraid of what you want. Even if it's complicated and difficult and other people don't always understand it. You can have that without being like me, you know. Ruining things. You can do it better. But you have to trust yourself."

Paige isn't sure if she knows how to do that right now, or if any of this is good advice coming from a woman with a disastrous track record, but the advice sparks something in her nonetheless and whether or not she should believe it, she wants to.

At the very least, Paige knows Veronica is right about what she _doesn't_ want, and if she's so terrified of following in her mother's footsteps then she has to make the choice that she's been too scared, stubborn, or complacent to make.

And though her mother isn't saying it, there's the implicit suggestion of something she _does_ want, something that doesn't make any sense but will surely never be boring, and Paige doesn't know, honestly, if she's ready for it but for the first time in a while she forgives herself for craving it anyway.

Paige sighs—she's already emotionally drained, and her hands still hurts and she needs time to process all of this and figure out which of a thousand questions she wants to ask her mom first. But she thinks it's possible that Veronica is what she needs right now, despite the past or maybe because of it, so she chooses _clean slate_ or at least _second chance_ and it's probably not the safe choice, but she's going to have to make a lot of not-safe choices to get back to the life that she wants, and she might as well start here. "Do you want to get a drink? Tomorrow?"

Veronica's lips curve almost imperceptibly, and she nods. "Of course."

"Okay. Good."


	30. Exchange

Paige is pretty sure she's going to kill Walter O'Brien.

Which is funny, since the only reason he's been acting like such a child is because she saved his life. For other people that might be a once in a lifetime occurrence, but Scorpion is staffed by geniuses with an affinity for danger, so they'd stopped keeping track ages ago. The difference this time is that Paige made a choice he didn't agree with, so he stayed deathly silent through the entire ride back to the garage and then jumped out the SUV and stormed up to the loft without a word.

She doesn't like when Walter shuts her out, and especially not for doing exactly what he's done for her a hundred times before. The liaison considers settling in at her desk, taking out her frustration on some bills while Walter cools down, but she can feel the geniuses staring at her and frustration beating down on her so hard that it physically makes her ache. No one will question her if she simply leaves for the day and holes up at home, but Paige already knows that in the quiet of her apartment she'll replay the exchange over and over in her head until she goes insane. So she decides to face the music—or maybe just break the radio—and flings her purse into her chair before striding up the stairs after him. She can still sense everyone's eyes on her but she ignores them as she knocks once and then walks straight in.

Walter is slumped in his chair, his elbows propped on his knees and his fingers tangled in his hair. Paige can barely see his face, but she knows it isn't good. He looks like he's so overwhelmed he can barely function and it always scares her, a little, to see him this way because that's when he's the most reckless.

But for every ounce of worry she feels there is an equal amount of irritation, because he's being hypocritical and she understands why he's upset but that doesn't make it much better. "Walter," she says sternly, sighing when he buries his head deeper into his hands. "Why are you so mad at me? I didn't do anything you wouldn't have done in the same situation and you know it."

There's a muffled grunt behind his fingers and Walter slowly lets them drop, revealing how red his eyes are and the tension in the thin line of his mouth. But it doesn't resemble anger so much as anxiety, that expression he gets when he's trying to understand something but he can't quite crack it, and she realizes instantly that he's not so much angry with her actions as confused by them. "You jeopardized the mission," he says in a low voice, but it's not threatening. "Months of research, weeks of tracking them and you gave up all our intel for—."

"For you," Paige finishes, refusing to sound guilty because she doesn't feel that way. "Yes, I did, and I wasn't expecting you to thank me but I didn't think you would act like this either."

He's going to be stubborn—she already knows from the way he drags his hand over his mouth and looks away from her. The wheels on his chair squeak slightly as he pushes himself up, walking less than a foot before stopping suddenly. "I had it handled, Paige. It was two men. I would have figured out a plan…"

"It didn't look like you had a plan," Paige retorts. She's not insulting his intelligence—Walter has gotten himself out of tighter spots than being held hostage by a couple of glorified bodyguards. _Don't give it to them_ , he'd insisted, and Paige had clutched the flash drive in her hand, determined not to lose the evidence that would dismantle an entire network of human traffickers.

And then she saw a flash in Walter's eyes—uncertainty—and Paige realized that he'd run the calculations and they weren't in his favor. That left her with only one option.

"It looked like you were scared," she says, her voice softening because she knows he won't like hearing the words. "And I don't see you that way very often so I chose to protect you. Now you're safe, at home, where we can regroup and finish the mission, so I'd make the same choice all over again if I had to."

Walter rubs his face and takes three halted steps forward before turning around and pacing in the opposite direction. "I understand why…" He glances at her for just a second and then breaks their eye contact, shaking his head. "That's not true. I don't understand. Greater good dictates that my life was not worth the hundreds of people we've put at risk. You made the wrong choice, Paige."

She swallows, her hands clenching into fists at her side. He's never said that—never criticized her decisions—even though she's messed up before. She can't believe that his characteristic selflessness regarding this case can suddenly be so…a _ggravating_.

Paige murmurs his name as a warning, but he just jerks to a stop and faces her, cheeks flushed like it's a hundred degrees around them. "What were you thinking? Why would you endanger the mission like that?"

"Because I love you, Walter, _holy_ —," she snaps, pushing her hands agitatedly through her hair before gripping the strands between her fingers. "Why the hell else would I do it? You've jeopardized operations to save me before, but you didn't think I would do the same for you? I cared about those trafficking victims, too, right up until it was between their lives and yours. Guess which one I'm always going to choose."

She expects a snappy reply, and it's only when she doesn't get one that the full import of her confession washes over her. Her eyes widen and Paige bites her lip, but the words have already escaped, and for a moment Walter doesn't react in any way, the silence between them louder than anything he's ever said to her.

_Why would I do that?_ She doesn't like his attitude, sure. Maybe she just wants to shut him up. But those eight letters were right on the tip of her tongue, and now that Tim was out of the picture, Paige was clearly ready and desperate to share them. If she hadn't blurted them out just now, she has a feeling they would've escaped soon enough, at some other random, inconvenient moment.

"Paige…" he mumbles, but she can't handle the question in his voice so she opts to just keep ranting until she figures out what to do.

"Walter, for the love of God, if you're about to tell me that it's different because I have Ralph, then just keep your mouth shut because I'm sick of you acting like no one's going to be affected if you don't come home."

"That's not…" The genius exhales, rocking back and forth on his heels as his hands disappear into his pockets, looking like he'll collapse if he stops moving. "I wasn't going to say that."

Paige is the interpreter, and the one who just dropped a huge bomb on him, and she should be saying _something_ to get them through it, but she's got nothing. It's all a frenetic blur in her head and even though she shouldn't be nervous about Walter's reaction—she believes that he loves her, doesn't she?—it's driving her crazy not being able to read his expression.

"Are you…sure?" he asks finally. It's such a _Walter_ question and Paige is wound so tightly that she almost bursts into laughter. Mistaking her attempts to hold back for confusion, he adds, "I'm, uh, referring to what you just…"

"I know what you're referring to, Walter," the liaison interrupts, releasing an audible sigh that mercifully breaks up some of the tension in her body. She knows there's still a chance to salvage this, because of course she loves him—as a friend, as a crucial part of her life, as a mentor to her son—but it doesn't have to be more than that. And yet she knows pulling back now will hurt them both, more than she can accept. "Yes. Okay? I didn't ever plan to tell you like this but…sometimes you're just really insufferable, you know that?"

There's nothing romantic about her admission—not that she imagined candles and flowers, exactly, but she certainly expected the words to come out more smoothly—but when she hazards to look up, Walter is trying and failing to contain the brightest grin she's ever seen on him, and she know he doesn't care.

It doesn't take long before she cracks a smile, too, and she covers her face with her palms, shaking her head. "We're such a mess."

"That's accurate." Walter lets out a deep breath and Paige stills, anticipating what might come next, but he doesn't move and she drops her hands to look at him. "I, uh…" He shifts his weight nervously as his expression grows slightly more serious. "I know that the appropriate, uh, course of action would be to k-kiss you and I…I really want to, but I think that if I do, I might not be able to…stop…and there are a lot of things that we—."

She knows he'll keep rambling until she cuts him off, and she really thinks she might explode if she doesn't touch him, so she clears her throat. "Walter?"

"Hm?"

"I'm going to kiss you."

He stops shuffling and stares at her, eyebrows raised. "Oh, uh…okay."

Walter is further away than she thought he was and by the time she finally reaches him, her lips can't meet his fast enough. Her fingers curl around his neck and Paige wastes no time in melting against him as his palms curve around her waist and land on her hips, tugging her to him.

Paige has never been jealous of the geniuses' impeccable memory—it's always seemed to bring them more pain than joy—but no one has ever kissed her like this and she wishes she could catalog every moment in perfect detail. She settles for knowing that it will be stored in his brain permanently, something good, she hopes, in a lifetime of unhappiness.

She's relieved that Walter doesn't seem hesitant, doesn't push her away even unintentionally. He's right; they have so much to talk about, two years of secrets and half-truths they'll need to untangle, a few things he might not be thrilled to hear. But she wants him. That becomes clearer to her every day and no matter how he feels about her choosing him over the greater good, over almost anything else, neither of them will stop doing it, because they need each other.

He breaks the kiss and shuts his eyes, exhaling softly against her cheek. "I, um, should have said that I love you. Too. Paige."

"I know," she whispers, and she's going to tell him why in a minute…or an hour…or maybe tomorrow. But for now she simply pulls him back to her and wonders if it was always supposed to happen like this, rushed and messy and a little bit ridiculous.

They've never been traditional, anyway.


	31. Fool Me Once

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously I need something to occupy me during the hiatus (BOOOOO) so this is my answer to the question: What if Veronica is totally playing them? It would suck for Paige to get hurt again, but I think it's more likely that her mother has an ulterior motive than that she suddenly just decided to be a mom again. Waige-centric because I'm me so of course it is.

"Walter, I am _so_ sorry."

He shut his laptop screen and glanced toward the door of the loft, where Paige was standing with her arms crossed over her chest as if she was trying to fold into herself. Her eyes were shining and she looked a little lost. Walter wagered that she was in shock, trying to address the problem before she'd even really processed it.

"No." The genius shook his head, keeping his gaze locked on hers so she would know he meant what he said. "This wasn't you."

"Yes, it was. I let her stay, I let her around the team, in the garage…" Paige sighed shakily, clearing her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Did she take everything?"

"No. She cleared out the main account, but I spread some of our funds among multiple smaller accounts. It's enough for us to survive."

She pressed her lips together and nodded, obviously relieved. "At least she didn't find those."

Except Veronica _did_ find them. Walter had seen enough horror stories in five years of tracking down stolen money for banks to set up the other accounts as fail safes, but he could also find out easily enough when those accounts were last accessed. For whatever reason—guilt, compassion, love—Veronica left them untouched.

He would tell Paige eventually. But not right now. He didn't want to say anything that could be misconstrued as a defense of her mother.

"I'm sorry, Walter. If I had known she would…if I had known she was even capable of this…"

"I think she had help." He scratched the back of his neck before nodding to his computer. "Someone talented. But I can pick up their tracks. I've, uh, done this plenty of times."

The genius stopped, afraid he might be coming across as arrogant. But a small wave of surprise hit him when he realized that he wasn't bragging. He was trying to reassure her.

Paige stepped forward hesitantly, arms still wrapped around herself. He stood in silence, expecting her response, but it never came and Walter wondered if perhaps she simply felt compelled to be near him. He'd felt that way about her often enough, when he was distressed, and his breath caught at the idea that he could offer her that same sense of security.

"I can make the money back, Paige. It'll only take a few months."

She moved in closer, enough that he had to look down to see her face clearly, and said, "I know you _can_ make it back. But trust me, Walter, I'm not sleeping until I fix this. You won't have to."

"Thank you, but that's n-not what I'm saying." Walter inhaled, unsure how she would respond to his next words. "I don't…I don't have to report it."

The liaison blinked, obviously thrown. He'd been hoping she would understand him without too much explanation, but that seemed unlikely in her current emotional state. "What?"

He cleared his throat. "Your mother will likely receive a substantial prison sentence if she's caught again. Not to mention that you will be forced to relive and discuss the events of the past three weeks repeatedly." The genius searched her face for any clues about her reaction but found none as she stared at him blankly. "This should be your decision, Paige. I won't report it if you don't want me to."

Her expression crumbled, just for a second, before she blew out a loud breath and looked down at her feet. "This is your company. Your life. Everything you've built. I won't let you jeopardize that because I made the mistake of letting her back into my life."

"But it w-wasn't your mistake." Her attention snapped back to him and she furrowed her eyebrows. "You warned us about her past. You advised us not to trust her and I d-didn't listen."

Paige didn't seem angry—at least not at him—but there was an unmistakable edge in her voice when she spoke again. "Why didn't you, Walter? I was trying to protect the team. Do you not trust my judgment?"

_I trust you more than you could possibly understand. More than I've ever trusted anyone._

But he hadn't been the only one not to listen. Cabe, exercising a paternal instinct over Paige, encouraged her to spend time with Veronica and approach their relationship with an open mind. Toby had also bonded with the woman, despite his suspicions that she was less than truthful about the circumstances of the nuclear reactor case. And Ralph was eager to untangle the mystery surrounding his family, since Paige had told him so little about her life before he was born.

Walter knew he should be honest about his own reasons. But he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to tell her that Veronica read him like an open book and gained his trust by preying on his biggest weakness.

_She was the only one who wanted me to win you back. Who believed I could be what you needed._

Except she didn't. Walter had no reason to trust that anything she'd said to him was genuine.

"No, Paige, of c-course I do." The truth stuck in his throat, but he knew he couldn't get away with saying nothing. "Perhaps I didn't believe that someone I trust with my life could have been raised by someone so deceitful. That was naïve. But…that wasn't my only reason."

She stared at him questioningly.

"You've, uh, helped me so much with my parents," he continued, annoyed by the unevenness in his speech. "If not to have a relationship, then—at least to make peace. I hoped…I guess…that you might be able to do the same."

The liaison's expression softened and Walter felt a weight lift off his shoulders. Though it wasn't the entire story, it certainly wasn't a lie. Since the day she and her son entered his life, he'd been trying to pay back everything they had given him, in whatever way he was capable of.

"That's different," she sighed, finally breaking her silence. "Your parents are decent people. I know they don't really understand you, but that's the worst you can say about them. That's not the worst thing you can say about my mother." Paige bit her lip. "Report the theft. If you don't, she'll do it to someone else. I don't want that on my conscience."

"Okay." He nodded. "I will, uh, endeavor to keep you and Ralph out of it as much as possible."

"Thank you."

There was a note of finality in the words, but she stayed rooted in her spot. Walter wondered if he should be the one to move away—they were close, and he didn't want to make her uncomfortable—but she didn't seem to notice, too deep in thought as her teeth sunk into her lip again and her eyes fell level with his shoulders.

"Paige," the genius murmured after a moment, the words flowing out freely even though he wasn't sure if it was what she wanted or needed to hear. Maybe she was waiting for him to say them. Or maybe she'd forgotten he was standing there. "I'm sorry. About everything."

The money—he could fix that. He could find it, or at least take on enough lucrative private jobs to make up the difference. But Paige had lost her mother, again, and it was bound to hurt much worse this time. That was a problem no one could solve.

Why did someone as smart, kind, and accepting as Paige get abandoned over and over again?

Her bottom lip trembled. "You know, I saw her with Ralph, and for a second I thought…" She trailed off.

"What?"

"I thought she just wanted to be part of my life," Paige whispered, dropping her head into her hands. "I was so stupid."

Her shoulders were shaking, and Walter didn't have to see her face to realize that she'd started to cry. He froze. It was so rare for Paige to lose control like this, and it wasn't his right to comfort her.

Comforting other people had always seemed like a chore. He wasn't sure why, with her, it felt like a privilege.

_This is Tim's job_ , Toby's voice echoed in his head. But Tim wasn't there. And if he pushed her away now and encouraged her to seek solace in the trainee, how would she ever believe that he was making emotional progress? He wanted to be there for her. Even if it was just as a friend.

Walter searched his brain and recalled what she'd done the night he broke down over Megan's death. The circumstances were undoubtedly different, but hopefully similar enough to warrant the same action. He could recall exactly the way Paige embraced him, their every point of contact, the steady beat of her heart mixed with his. It had brought him more comfort than he thought possible in his grief.

So the genius closed the gap between them, and when she didn't move he wrapped his arms around her and recreated the gesture. Their height difference forced him to adjust the position of his hands, to the middle of her back, and she stiffened at first, surprised, before her body softened and she pressed her head into his shoulder.

He almost laughed, that _she_ would be the one to freeze in response to _his_ touch, but the thought evaporated as she shuddered harder against him and her muffled sobs soaked through his shirt. Paige's hands were on his chest, pressed between them, and occasionally he could feel her fingers curl around his collar. This was the closest they'd ever been and he was sure he wanted to hold her all the time. But not like this. Not because her heart was broken.

"Paige," he said quietly, when her breathing had slowed and her tears started to die out, "you have a family here. Everyone on the team wants to be part of your life."

_Especially me._ Logically, he knew he was—he was her boss, her friend, he saw her nearly every day—but he wanted to be in every part of her life, from the time she woke up to the moment she fell asleep. And he craved her constant presence in his life too.

_But for now, you have to forget about that._

He couldn't be selfish about his feelings for her when she was facing such bitter disappointment. Paige was strong, and she would get through this, but the prospect of telling Ralph had to be daunting, and bringing her mother to justice wasn't going to be an easy undertaking for any of them. They would be picking up the pieces Veronica left behind for a while.

Paige pushed on his chest and backed out of his grip, her fingers flying up to wipe off her stained cheeks. Walter reluctantly let his arms swing back to his sides before giving up and shoving his hands into his pockets when they reached for her of their own volition. "Thank you," she muttered, her voice thick with emotion. "Sorry about your shirt."

Walter shrugged. He had more. "Do you, uh…" The genius lowered his head to meet her eyes. "Do you want me to take you home? O-or you can stay here? I'll be working on the accounts but you're welcome to…to do…whatever you need to do."

"I'm staying here. I told you, Walter, I want to help." She offered him a weak smile. "Besides. I think Ralph and I would like to be with our family right now."

* * *

It was nearly midnight—long after Paige and Ralph returned to their apartment, after the team had helped him transfer the remaining funds to new accounts, hours into his search for Veronica's accomplice—when a new e-mail popped into his inbox. The name was a fake and the address would surely be a dead end, but the genius knew who it was from instantly. When Paige was ready, he supposed she deserved to know about this as well.

_Please take care of her._

He would.


	32. Wrecked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is sort of my version of what might happen in the winter finale…I don't know the exact order of episodes but let's just assume that's Wreck the Halls. This is based on what we know about the episode so far from the press release, so a bit spoilery I guess? At any rate, I'm pretty sure it'll make sense if you just read it.

 

Every step she took toward the loft seemed to jar Tim's words loose in her head.

"You were a really good team today," he'd said casually while pulling a slice of pizza from the box and soaking up the excess grease with a napkin. Paige opened her mouth, prepared with a default response about Scorpion's brilliance, but shut it when she saw the tension in his shoulders. He wasn't talking about the geniuses.

Something about the way she and Walter worked together, supported each other, talked each other off the ledge did remind her of the old them. Back when they felt like partners instead of two people on opposite sides of a wall. Of course, she hadn't spared a thought to all this when Ralph was in danger. It was only now, when her son was safe and slumped on the couch with his head on Happy's shoulder, that the significance of the day's events bore down on her. "Walter loves Ralph," she said softly, answering the unasked question.

Tim smiled, a little sadly, and tucked a clean napkin between his hand and the plate. "He loves you both."

There was a time she would have protested. But she knew he was right and it seemed dishonest to say otherwise. Paige bit her lip. "Are we okay?"

It struck her as slightly absurd to have this conversation right then. She'd been in dangerous situations before, but nothing compared to having her son kidnapped by violent criminals. The liaison was exhausted in every way a person could be, and assumed—logically, she thought—that Tim would be eager to spend the evening relaxing with her and Ralph, making them feel comfortable and safe. But the edge in his voice suggested otherwise.

"Paige, I…" The trainee glanced around and lowered his voice even though their friends were on the other side of the garage. "I think you know what I'm going to say, so let's just talk about it later."

_Later_ clearly meant much later, as Tim halfheartedly joked around with the rest of the team for an hour before announcing his intention to head home, studiously ignoring Paige's glare. She endeavored to put his strange behavior out of her mind and focus on her son, wrapping her arms around Ralph and grinning when he didn't wriggle out of her embrace.

There was a movie, and cake, and then one by one the geniuses started to fall fast asleep on the couch and chairs, unable to muster the energy required to drive. Paige considered joining them, but underneath her fatigue was a thread of adrenaline that kept her restless, and it propelled her up the stairs toward the one person she was confident would still be awake.

Paige wasn't surprised when Walter spent most of the evening in his loft; she knew it had nothing to do with his desire to be around Ralph. The truth was that he'd been somewhat of a wreck when the young genius was in danger, struggling to think straight, and he needed time to process his reactions and recover. But she still had to show him her gratitude, somehow—for formulating a plan, for risking himself to retrieve Ralph, for _caring_.

She reached the door and Tim's voice in her head faded out abruptly, replaced with the sound of her breathing echoing in her ears. Paige knocked lightly, twice, and then stepped into the entryway, long since accustomed to not waiting for a response.

"Hey," she greeted, smiling involuntarily when she caught him staring at his whiteboard, eyebrows creased in concentration. It wasn't uncommon for him to wind down this way and the liaison always found his focus secretly adorable.

Walter glanced up at her, blinking as he came back from wherever he was, and returned her smile. "Hey. Are you heading out?"

"Maybe in a little," Paige shrugged. "Ralph's passed out and he seems happy. I don't want to move him. If that's okay?"

A hint of emotion passed over his features, too quickly for her to identify, and he nodded. "Of course it is."

Paige mirrored the action and crossed her arms over her chest. There hadn't been an ounce of awkwardness between them earlier, when they were united by a common goal, but now it was clearly rushing back in full force. "Walter," she started, opting to say what she came to say and then give him the space he clearly craved. He placed his dry-erase marker on the tray and turned to face her. "I really don't know how to thank you. For today. Not just for helping Ralph, but, uh…" She huffed out a quiet laugh. "For keeping me from losing my mind? We're both incredibly appreciative. I just wanted you to know that."

The genius's lips curved slightly and Paige swore she saw him flush, but it was gone as quickly as it came. "I'm glad Ralph's okay." Pride seeped into his voice as he smiled. "But he didn't really need me. He was fine on his own."

She couldn't argue that Ralph had played a significant part in his own rescue. The boy was cagey on exactly where he'd learned how to lift the gun runner's phone—her money was on Happy—but rewiring it to broadcast his exact location was a trick he could pull in his sleep.

"One day he'll be using those skills to save you," Paige joked, feeling the tension between them dissipate slightly. She recognized that Ralph's dream was to become a full member of Scorpion one day, and although that prospect terrified her, he'd certainly proven his ability to stay calm under pressure and think his way out of trouble. If he wanted to use his gifts for good, like the geniuses did every day, how could she stand in his way?

"He'll be amazing," Walter said softly, both in response to her teasing and to what he knew she was thinking. "With his natural IQ, a-and the EQ he got from you…" He dropped his gaze and scratched the back of his neck. "He can do things I'll never be able to do. The world is lucky to have someone like him."

Walter was always able to express his emotions better when it came to her son—he'd proven that again and again—but her breath still caught at his words. Drew loved Ralph, but he never showed the same warmth and admiration that Walter did toward the young genius. It was one of the first things that made her…

She chose not to finish that thought.

He inhaled audibly, drawing her attention back to him while he continued to stare intently at the floor. "Paige, I, um…I know this is a decision for the future, but I don't want you to ever worry about Ralph having a place here. If he wants it…and I h-hope he does, but obviously that's his choice, uh…this is all his. Scorpion. I'd like for him to take it over someday."

Logically, Paige had suspected as much; Ralph and Walter connected in a way that most people were incapable of. But the intensity in his voice, in his expression, in the way he looked up at her—apprehensively, like he was nervous about her reaction—made her eyes sting with the threat of tears, and her answer came out unsteadily. "That's a big honor, Walter. I know what this company means to you."

The genius shrugged. "Not as much as you and Ralph do." He cleared his throat, shaking his head and letting out a chuckle to lighten the mood. "I can't wait to see the next generation of outcasts he hires to—."

She drowned out the rest of his sentence. Walter stiffened as he registered the unexpected pressure of her lips against his, her fingers gripping hard at the base of his neck, and then he was pushing back, enough to make his presence known but not enough to disrupt her balance. He tasted like coffee and the mint Chapstick he always used, and for a long minute, Paige pushed every thought out of her mind that wasn't related to how fervently he was kissing her.

And if it was just them, in his loft, disconnected from the outside world with no one and nothing else to answer to, she would have stayed there all night.

His hands fell to her waist, pushing up the hem of her shirt as they smoothed around her back, and Paige snapped out of her daze, yanking herself from his grasp. Blood rushed to her face and she stared up at him with wide eyes as the weight of her impulsive action hit her. "Oh God," she breathed. "Walter, I'm sorry."

The genius flexed his fingers, breathing heavily as he watched her in confusion. "Paige."

She shook her head and he stopped. He'd swept her off her feet without even trying, but that didn't change the fact that she and Tim were still technically dating, that Walter had insisted they couldn't be together, that she was unable to promise him anything when she had no clue what she wanted or needed…

Paige took another step back and swallowed. "I'm just emotional today and I…I'm sorry." She spun around and rushed out, dragging her hand over her mouth. He muttered something under his breath right before the door closed behind her and she knew he thought she didn't hear.

But she was pretty sure the words _please don't be sorry_ were going to haunt her.


	33. Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a short little fic that's basically the conversation I hope Walter and Tim have in the next episode. Even though I trash Tim sometimes in my fics, I actually quite like him—I just cringe every time he and Paige are together on screen. She's never going to look at him the way she looked at Walter by that tar pit, right? Swoon! But I still think he deserves a dignified exit.

"Your hero needs another drink! To the eggnog!"

Walter rolled his eyes. Toby had just wrapped up a fifteen-minute alternate version of history in which he singlehandedly saved Ralph from the gunrunners, making the single armed man he'd taken out sound like an entire army and studiously ignoring the rest of the team's contributions, and was now marching through the cabin with his glass held victoriously in the air. Happy slapped him in the back of his head, but it was oddly affectionate. Everyone was too excited, exhausted, or drunk to bicker with the behaviorist this time.

The real heroes of the day, of course, were Paige and Ralph. Perhaps Walter was biased, but objectively, they'd contributed the most to the success of the mission. Ralph's grace under fire was remarkable, and when Paige was motivated by her son's safety, there seemed to be no limit to what she could accomplish. The genius thought he couldn't respect them more than he already did, but he was proven wrong.

"Boss?" His eyes snapped up, and then had to travel farther to make contact with Tim, who was suddenly standing very close. "Can we talk?"

Walter cleared his throat, which the trainee took as agreement. Tim nodded his head toward the kitchen—still in view of the team, but out of their earshot, Walter noted—and the genius followed him hesitantly.

Tim came to an abrupt stop, leaning his weight against the counter as his arms crossed over his chest. The tension was palpable and Walter racked his brain for possible causes, preferring not to be blindsided by whatever attack was coming his way. Was it the desk? He could see how that might come across as insulting, in hindsight. Or it could have been the way he'd rubbed Paige's back when he was trying to calm her down. Did that count as interference? He didn't mean it that way, although he wouldn't go so far as to say he was sorry it happened.

Instead, Tim blew out a deep breath and said, "I accepted another job. I'm leaving tomorrow."

Walter blinked, slightly disoriented by the unexpected news. "You're leaving?"

"Yeah." He brought one hand around to scratch the back of his neck. "I was offered a job doing security. In Jordan. I called to take it about an hour ago. Sorry I couldn't give you more notice, but they want me out there ASAP."

"I thought you were going to turn that job down?" Tim's eyebrows furrowed and Walter realized too late that he'd exposed his own eavesdropping. "Uh, I mean—."

"Relax, boss," the trainee smirked as his confusion morphed into amusement. "I guess I'm not surprised that you found out. A good leader always knows what's going on with his team." He dropped his arms, placing one hand on the counter and tapping his fingers absentmindedly along the edge. "Thank you for the opportunity. I've learned a lot from Scorpion. I'm sure there will be plenty of applications for your…unorthodox…methods out in the field."

Walter wasn't sure how to respond. He could accept the trainee's resignation, wish him luck, and embark happily on the next chapter of his Tim-free life. But there were too many unanswered questions and the genius had never coped well with those. "Can you, uh, explain to me what changed?" He pressed his lips together, sure he was going to regret digging himself into this hole. "Was it something I did?"

"No," Tim insisted, shaking his head. "There were a lot of factors. But I consider you a friend. I hope you know that. It couldn't have been easy to welcome me onto your team. I mean, I'm not a genius and well, considering the circumstances…"

"Circumstances?" Walter followed Tim's gaze over to the fireplace, where Paige was attaching a pair of fake antlers to Ralph's head. They were both smiling and his chest tightened in a familiar way at the sight. "Oh."

The trainee smiled, but it rang hollow even to Walter. "My point is that you had a lot of reasons to reject me out of hand, but you tried. And you don't try for everybody. So. I appreciate it."

The genius shifted his weight awkwardly, looking down at the floor. "I, uh…"

"You did it for her. I know." Tim shrugged, as if it was painfully obvious, and maybe it was to everyone except Paige. Realistically, Walter knew his life had centered on her and Ralph for years, thought he'd only admitted as much in the last few months. "I respect you, Walter. I respect everyone here. We've done some amazing work and if it was just about the cases, I'd stay. But…" He shrugged again. "It's important to me to be part of a team. A family. And I don't think I'll ever really be part of this one. This, uh…it's just not my world. It's yours."

Walter felt a duty to refute his claims, placate him somehow, but one glance at the trainee's determined expression told him that would be futile. He'd spent months wishing for Tim's disappearance, but now that he was actually faced with it, Walter had the strangest feeling he might actually miss the interloper.

But not as much as he missed Paige.

_Oh no._

"W-What about Paige?"

Tim shoved his hands in his pockets, looking slightly flustered. "I'm going to tell her when we get home," he admitted. "I haven't figured out how to break it to her."

"She might not take it well," the genius blurted out before he could filter himself. "She has a history of m-men prioritizing work over her."

Walter neglected to mention that he was one of those men, though it seemed unlikely to him that Paige had not already discussed the details of their non-relationship with Tim. Perhaps that was wishful thinking. Maybe the liaison had never considered their history important enough to explain…

"I know," Tim answered, mercifully breaking Walter's train of thought. "I didn't want to be one of them, but, well…sometimes what you think you want isn't really what you want, you know?"

The genius had only _wanted_ a handful of things in his life, and for him, that desire never went away. "Uh, not really."

Tim chuckled. "Right." Walter waited for more elaboration, but the trainee merely put his hand out and let the genius meet him halfway. "Can I ask you not to say anything yet? Until I get a chance to tell everyone myself?" Walter nodded. "Thank you."

The genius withdrew his hand. "Um, good luck, I guess. And if you ever need help—."

"I know who to call." He smiled, more genuinely this time, and patted Walter's shoulder on his way out of the kitchen and into the living room. Walter stiffened as he watched Paige put her hand on Tim's arm, leaning in to whisper something, and felt a spark of relief that this was the last night he'd be subjected to their public displays of affection.

Whatever was left between him and Paige—he had to believe there was still something—he couldn't deny that she cared about Tim. He hoped her heart wouldn't be broken, because if it wasn't, then she was never serious about the trainee. It wouldn't take too long for her to pick up the pieces and move on. It wouldn't be long before Walter could finally tell her the truth.

He hoped her heart wouldn't be broken because he couldn't stand to watch her get hurt again.


	34. Last Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a random little fic idea I had in my head. Set right after the end of "Ice Ca-Cabes." I don't plan to do a second chapter but you can fill in the blanks any way you like. ;) Happy Scorpion day!

"I can stay—."

Cabe waved Walter off. "I'm fine. Not like you won't be back here early as hell tomorrow. Besides, you've already had a pretty eventful day." The agent raised his eyebrow and Walter flushed. Cabe's smirk seemed to indicate that he wasn't just talking about the shrapnel. The genius had a feeling his…side trip…with Paige was going to be the topic of conversation for a while. "Just make sure everyone gets home safe."

"Sure." Tentatively, Walter reached down to the hospital bed and squeezed Cabe's hand, offering a tight smile. He'd found comfort in that gesture with Paige for years, but he was surprised and pleased to find that it applied to his mentor as well, at least in the aftermath of such a traumatic experience. "Good night," he mumbled, fighting back another wave of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him as he flashed back to Cabe laying on the ground, dying and begging for his help. The images seemed so irreconcilable with the joking man in front of him.

"Night, son."

"Night," he said again, unnecessarily, before switching off the overhead lights and exiting the room. He immediately threw himself into his post-case analysis—filing away solutions for future use, identifying areas for improvement—and walked right past a row of seats before his brain registered the woman sitting there with her legs stretched out in front of her. Walter backed up. "Paige?"

The liaison glanced up from her magazine, looking a little tired but still stunning despite the hellish day they'd had, in his estimation. "Oh, hey. Is Cabe asleep?"

"Soon. He, uh, practically kicked me out." Walter frowned. "I thought you'd left already? The rest of the team was gone twenty minutes ago."

Paige set her reading material on the side table and stood up, biting her bottom lip before she explained, "I thought I should stay. Today was pretty difficult, and I wanted to make sure you were…okay."

She looked genuinely concerned, but that didn't stop the hint of bitterness that crept into his voice. "I'm fine. Android, remember?"

"Walter, I already…" Paige trailed off and sighed quietly. "No. You're right. I know how you feel about Cabe. I know how much the two of you have been through together. And I'm sorry. I transferred my grief and fear onto you, and that wasn't fair."

 _I'm trying, Paige. Why isn't it enough? For you or anyone else?_ He let those words dissolve on his tongue and instead muttered, "Thanks."

"Yeah." She motioned toward the exit and they fell into silence for several long minutes as they walked through the maze of hospital corridors, shoulders brushing occasionally. They were nearly to the parking garage when Paige cast a sideways glance at him. "Did you say what you wanted to say? To Cabe?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Good." Paige paused, the wheels in her mind spinning almost audibly. He didn't have to wait long to find out what she was thinking. "I know this will sound weird, but…well, weird is kind of what we traffic in here." Walter couldn't stop his mouth from curving up and she mirrored his expression. "Look, if it's difficult to figure out what you want to say in the moment, maybe you could practice. Just…think about what you would tell the team, and if a situation like this comes up again, you can say exactly what you want to."

The genius stiffened. "What?"

She stopped walking and turned toward him. "You could have lost the chance to tell Cabe what he means to you. I'm glad you didn't, but don't you want to be prepared next time?"

"No. I have no desire to dwell on the potential deaths of my colleagues."

"Friends," Paige rebutted, crossing her arms in front of her. She didn't appear as frustrated with him as she had earlier, but she also was clearly not inclined to accept his response. "They're your friends. And it's not about imagining the worst. It's just about knowing what you would want to tell them, if you had to." She stepped a little closer, until Walter could smell the lavender lotion she'd slathered on to cover up the scent of the hot springs. "Try it with me. What would you say to me?"

 _If you were never going to see me again?_ That was the subtext, even if she wasn't verbalizing it, and the thought made Walter's throat close up and his hands shake. He shoved them in his pockets and swallowed, startled by the sudden tightness of his chest. Well, at least they were already in a hospital. "Paige, this is absurd."

"Walter, relax, it's just an experiment."

Why was she pushing this? While it was pleasant to have a conversation that didn't involve her yelling at him, and he'd always trusted in her efforts to help him develop his EQ, she had to know that she was asking too much of him. "You're proposing an impossible scenario. It does not require preparation because it won't happen."

Paige seemed…surprised by his answer. She leaned back, regarding him curiously. "Come on. You know it's not impossible for something to happen to me. Or any of us." She tipped her head. "Trust me, I don't want to lose anyone on the team either, but what we do is dangerous and we have to accept that—."

"I can't accept it. That's the point," Walter snapped. Paige furrowed her eyebrows and he knew she would press him for an explanation anyway, so he exhaled loudly and continued. "If I say my 'last words' to you—to any member of Scorpion—then that means I've given up hope. Maybe you don't see it that way, but I do. It signifies that I've resigned myself to their fate instead of trying to save them until every possible option is exhausted. I couldn't do that for my sister, I couldn't do it for Cabe, and I can't do it for you. So please don't ask me to."

Paige's jaw dropped slightly, and just as he was bracing himself for a lecture on how _this isn't all about how you feel, Walter_ or _you can't control everything so stop trying_ , she did the last thing he expected and wrapped her arms around his neck, resting her chin on his shoulder. The genius tensed. He'd had no clue how desperate he was for the contact until her body was pressed against his and dopamine flooded his brain in an almost unbearable concentration.

He felt like he could breathe again.

"Don't ever give up, Walter," she murmured in his ear. "It's one of the things that helps you achieve the impossible." Paige hugged him tighter for a brief second before releasing him, stepping backward again. He pressed his lips into a thin line to avoid betraying his disappointment. "Telling someone how you feel about them, just in case, isn't giving up. But I get it. Obviously you're not comfortable with this yet." She gave him a half-smile, the acceptance and understanding in her eyes something he'd wondered if he was ever going to see again after the strain of the past few months. "Just remember that people need to know, okay? If you can't tell them at the end, then you need to find a way to tell them when they're alive and safe. It's easy to assume that people know, but they need to hear it. They want to hear it. Trust me."

Though Walter refused to consider a future—any future—without Paige present in some way, she _was_ being logical. They put themselves at risk frequently, and he'd spent long enough pretending that shouldn't inform his life. If something happened to either of them, the genius knew precisely what words he would regret not saying. "Paige?"

"Yeah?"

He swallowed. "I have something to tell you."


	35. Time

Eight months.

It had seemed like such a long time. Tim would be more than seven thousand miles away from Paige, from Ralph, for eight months. Even Walter could fix things in that amount of time.

But he hadn't. They were friends, and he found some consolation in that. He could safely say, from experience, that a bond of friendship with Paige was better than nothing. And maybe he that was all he would get in this life. But as selfish as it was, he'd never stop wanting more. Wanting to love her the way he knew he could, now.

Eight months and he could be the right person for her. Eight months and she would realize that Tim wasn't the one. Eight months for Walter to find a way to give Paige everything she deserved.

His time was up.

Tim would be returning soon—Walter didn't know the exact date, because if he did, he couldn't guarantee that he would even bother getting out of bed. The interloper would return, charming and nauseatingly attentive as always, and he would pick up where he left off with Paige, no doubt making up for lost time in a manner that Walter was loathe to consider. She missed him—the genius gathered as much from snippets of their phone calls at the garage. Paige had made her choice a lifetime ago, and Walter was an idiot for believing he could change her mind.

He could tell her. The truth, this time, no backtracking. But he wouldn't, if she was happy. It would be unfair and ruin any ounce of goodwill he'd earned with her. Walter knew he had a thousand chances to win her, when she was receptive, when she wanted him to, but that window was closed.

So he would do what he'd always done. Bite his tongue and tell himself that this was for the best. Hope every day that Tim would protect Paige and care for her, help Ralph connect with the world, give them both the family they wanted so badly. That would have to be enough.

It never quite would be.

His eyes traveled of their own volition to Paige's empty desk. It was Saturday. No reason for her or the rest of the team to be there. God, the garage was so quiet—he could practically hear the echo of this own thoughts, imagine the door swinging open and the sound of her heels meeting the concrete floor.

"Tough problem?"

Walter's eyes flew up. She wasn't a figment of his imagination…or at least, he didn't think so. If he was hallucinating, the realism was impressive.

When he failed to respond, Paige raised her eyebrow. "Why are you sitting on your desk?"

The genius looked down at the wood desktop through his crossed legs, frowning. "I thought it might give me a new perspective."

"Mind if I try?" Walter shrugged and Paige dropped her purse on the couch before crossing over to his workstation, hopping up next to him and letting her legs dangle over the edge. They sat in silence for a long minute, Walter choosing to be contented with her presence instead of asking why she'd come. There was a chance he wouldn't like the answer. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

He didn't know what he was looking for. Clarity? Peace? Assurance that he would survive watching the woman he loved move on with someone else? In that case…no.

Paige leaned toward him slightly, her shoulder bumping against his in what seemed like an intentional movement, though Walter couldn't be sure. She glanced over at him. "This isn't about a project, is it?"

The genius shook his head, staring down at his clasped his hands in his lap. It was torture, in some ways, having her this close. Close enough to touch her, to whisper in her ear all the words he needed her to hear. But she would leave. He didn't want her to leave, either.

She was always too near and too far, all at once.

"I want…" Paige swallowed, moving her gaze straight ahead. "I want to tell you something, but I'm scared to. It would really help if you said…anything, right now."

Walter's heart leapt into his throat. He'd never understood that expression until he met Paige, but whenever she was upset, or in danger, the genius couldn't deny that was exactly what it felt like. She wasn't showing her traditional markers for anger or fear, but she didn't sound happy. What if she was leaving Scorpion to be with Tim? Would he be able to stop her? Should he?

Irrational thinking. He didn't have the facts yet. Walter knew he could spend hours debating, analyzing, and still not know how to reply to her cryptic statement, so he abandoned his better sense and said the first thing that came to his mind. "I d-don't want you to be afraid."

Paige nodded. She didn't seem comforted, necessarily, but her voice was stronger next time she spoke. "Tim's coming back soon." The liaison glanced at him briefly, nodding again when she read from his expression that he'd already pieced it together. "We, uh, talked about moving forward. You know, where we saw ourselves a year from now. Five years." Walter was pouring a strenuous amount of energy into schooling his features, but whatever Paige saw was clearly still too much, and she stared down at her feet as they kicked against the front of the desk. "I wanted to see that. I wanted to be excited about it. But when I pictured myself in the future, it wasn't….it was never with him."

Walter didn't mean to exhale so loudly. His knuckles were white where they wrapped around the edge of the wood and the pressure had just been too much for his body and…and she didn't love Tim. She hadn't said those words, exactly, but it seemed like a reasonably safe assumption even for someone as emotionally deficient as him.

"Walter?"

Paige was staring at him, no doubt concerned he was having a stroke of some kind. He cleared his throat. "I'm l-listening."

"So, um…I broke it off. A few weeks ago. And I spent a lot of time thinking about…about the future I did want. Not the one I was forcing myself to imagine, but the one that I kept seeing even when I tried not to." The liaison let out a low sigh and crossed her ankles, the only sound passing between them the quiet thud of her boots against the hard surface. "The stuff I did with Tim…the dates, spending time with his family, the long phone calls…I did want all of those things. I was just doing them with the wrong person. I was planning for a life with the wrong person." She bit her lip and when she met his eyes again, the genius was startled by the heat in hers. "It should have been us. Everything you didn't want and that I gave up on…it just should have been us. Tell me that I'm wrong."

Walter sat motionless, vaguely aware that his mouth was agape. She was challenging him, asking him to return her sentiment or reject her for the final time. He wanted…he wanted the right words, but they didn't come. They never came, not naturally, but Paige knew that. All she needed was for him not to push her away again.

The hand that was between them moved around to rest behind her back, and Walter tipped his head, catching one last glimpse of her dark eyes before his lids slipped closed and his lips touched hers. Paige hesitated, exhaling shallowly before she pushed back against him, her fingers trailing up his outstretched arm to grip his shoulder. He shifted the position of his legs for a less awkward angle that would allow him to slide one hand over the outside of her thigh while the other rested along her jaw.

She was asking him for more than he had ever offered anyone, more than he'd believed he was capable of providing. A commitment he once viewed as foolish and unrealistic, something even normals tended to shy away from. It should have scared him, but he knew he would give it to her, and probably anything else she asked for, because he'd already faced the alternative and he didn't want it.

Life without her would never be enough.


	36. Wake Up

He doesn't want this.

Yes, he's secretly thrilled, because he's always felt a little ill thinking about Tim and Paige together, touching, murmuring words he's held himself back from saying for so long. He's relieved that the interloper won't be stepping in as Ralph's new father figure, stepping into a role Walter stupidly denied himself.

But he doesn't want _this_ , the tears, the distress on Paige's face. Even if it was a mutual decision—Walter has no way of knowing if that's true—she's struggling with a broken heart and it hurts him to watch. It makes him feel guilty, a repeat of Lake Tahoe, because he doesn't want Paige to move on, but what right does he have to stop her? How selfish is he to root against her happiness with someone else, when he himself still might not be what Paige wants or needs?

Seeing her cry affects him in unpleasant ways and he asks for Ralph's help on the virtual reality headset, hoping to solve a problem that he doesn't really want to solve. But he wants to be a good friend even if he has to follow advice from magazines that also feature biologically impossible sex tips and quizzes about what type of shoe he is. Walter doesn't know how to do this, but Paige, even in the midst of her own turmoil, understands that he's doing the best he can, which makes him want to keep trying. Keep making life easier for her in any small way.

He only states facts—most of the time, anyway—so he stops short of saying that he's sorry Paige and Tim broke up, because…well, he's not. But he is sincerely sorry to see her upset, and more than a little angry that she has been abandoned again. Whatever his issues with Tim, part of Walter had hoped the trainee would be a better man than him. The kind of man who would recognize everything Paige and Ralph had to offer and resolve never to give them up. It's what someone as loyal, honest, and strong as the liaison deserves.

He still wants to be the one to do all those things. But she chose Tim. Paige waited on him long enough and it's entirely possible that whatever was between them has passed, that she's figured out what's right for her and it isn't him. He'll have to accept that.

But for now, things are okay. They're partners, closer in some ways than they've ever been, now that he's not so busy distancing himself from her. They're a team—him, Paige, and Ralph—and Walter will do whatever it takes to preserve that.

And someday soon, when Paige isn't quite so raw and she's ready to hear it, Walter will tell her the truth.

* * *

She wants this.

But it still hurts. On the surface, it's clearly a mutual decision, but part of Paige wonders if she left Tim no choice. She's been skipping out on Skype calls, giving vague answers about the team, hedging when the trainee tries to make plans to celebrate his return. She never means to discourage him, it's just…easier. Not to confront the future. Not to question where her heart really is.

Tim is the first to broach it, but Paige accepts the breakup without much a fight. That makes her feel guilty. What was the point? Why has she held on to this so tightly for so many months, only to let it slip through her fingers at the first sign of trouble? Why isn't she in love with him?

It's illogical, to be upset because she isn't more upset. She's frustrated. Alone. A little angsty. But it also feels like her head is clear, like she's been desperately trying to keep an object in the air all this time and she can find relief now in just letting it fall. Paige has been in love before. She knows it's not supposed to feel like this—it's always work, but not this kind of work. Not the kind that constantly makes her fret that she's making a mistake.

And it wasn't just the distance. If she was rational, if she could keep her emotions out of it, Tim would obviously be the right man. He checks off all the boxes in the neat little list she keeps in her mind, of all the things that she's learned over the years she is supposed to look for in a partner. But love is not rational, or logical, or sane. Perhaps that's what's bothering her most, that she deluded herself into thinking she could force it to make sense. Force some order into her chaotic feelings. She's cared about Tim since the beginning and never purposefully deceived him. But her mother is right. Paige has been deceiving herself for so long she's not even sure what the truth is anymore.

She almost wishes—not seriously, but it crosses her mind—that the wall between her and Walter was still standing. That they'd never faced death together and decided to devote themselves to each other again. Because she's vulnerable and when the genius is standing in front of her at the garage, making an earnest effort to help her lost cause of a relationship, saying all the right things that she's not ready to hear, she has to walk away. She'll burst into tears if she stays and she doesn't want Walter to see her like that, any more than he wants to watch her cry over Tim. Because, despite his best efforts to appear neutral, Paige knows how he feels. How he must feel. And it scares her. Without Tim, what is there to keep her from falling right back into old habits? From craving something again that she swore off a long time ago?

Tim doesn't even want to stay friends. Paige can't blame him. They both know, although neither of them can say it out loud, that she's been running away from a problem much more than she's been running toward him. Trying to create the life for herself that she wants to want. But it's not reality. Reality is a horrible, jumbled, confusing mess and the person at the center of it, the person she becomes more terrified of losing the more insane he makes her, is not Tim. It doesn't hurt her to lose Tim, not much. It hurts her to realize that she doesn't know how to do this, stop hiding and start moving on.

She doesn't know how to figure out what she wants and commit to it without ruining her life and everyone else's around her, because it seems like she's constantly hurting _someone._

She doesn't know how to stop feeling like the weight of the world is on her shoulders, tell herself that she'll bounce back even if she makes the wrong decision.

She doesn't know how to avoid replaying the past over and over in her head, while she wonders what's so wrong with her that she can't just choose the path of least resistance. If the universe is sabotaging her or if she's sabotaging herself. If Tim will be the last rejection in a long line of rejections that makes her finally give up.

Maybe she's taking herself too seriously, and the world won't end if she lets herself off the hook. But right now, it feels like everything is ending. She's lost and it's all she can do not to drift to the one person who pushed her toward all this in the first place and now keeps looking at her with a sincerity and empathy in his eyes that guts her.

But she doesn't know if she can help it.


	37. Comfort

Her heart sank as Walter disappeared up the stairs.

He'd been doing it frequently over the past two weeks. Paige knew he couldn't handle being around her any more than strictly necessary for Scorpion. But she thought today would be different. Today wasn't about them.

Toby's discerning gaze flicked between her and the hole she was burning into the top of the steps. He touched her arm lightly to get her attention. "Hey," he murmured, tilting his head in the direction of her son, who was sacked out on the couch. "I've got him."

Paige nodded and stepped around the shrink to kiss Ralph's forehead, careful not to disturb him. His breathing was steady and even. Of course it was. They'd been released from the hospital for a reason. But she kept focusing on it, cataloging it, grateful for it.

She hadn't realized her hands were shaking until they touched the stair railing. Ralph was growing up, becoming capable of incredible things. Maybe it was still too early to involve him in Scorpion's activities, but they'd hit a wall with this case and he was so eager to help. Bringing him into the government office to bypass the thick security had seemed safe at the time, or she would never have agreed to it. Of course, knowing that the building was being staked out by a couple of cartel enforcers intent on protecting their secrets might have colored her assessment.

Walter fought them off long enough to escape with Ralph, but not before her son had been knocked unconscious. Listening to the struggle over the comms—including the sickening crack of a bullet that harmlessly embedded itself into the wall—made her feel terrified and helpless.

She knew this wouldn't be the last time. If Ralph really did follow in the footsteps of his hero and mentor, Paige would likely be worrying about him for decades. But not right now. Today he was safe.

The loft was silent and Paige could tell without looking much that Walter wasn't there. It was oddly meticulous. She'd never pegged the genius as a stress cleaner, but then again, he was a man of many surprises. His memories of space had strained things. Instead of lashing out like she expected him to, he'd retreated, putting what felt like miles of distance between them every day. It was agonizing. But she was determined to give him the time he needed to process and—she hoped—realize that her apology and explanation were genuine.

She was breaking that right now. She was selfish. But she couldn't help it.

They'd fallen back into old habits so fast after the buoy. Walter was her best friend, her confidant, her source of strength. In some ways, he was her mentor, teaching her to connect with her son. Other times, she was his mentor, or they were partners. The pull between them was almost magnetic. She'd given up counting how many times during the day she would move toward him, or vice versa, and it felt right, like they were just stronger together.

Losing that…she didn't know what to do. Paige wished she had the right answer for Walter, could tell him that nothing in space was a lie. Her feelings were still too complicated for that, but she would swallow her pride for the time being. She couldn't handle all of this without him.

She pushed open the door to the roof, wishing she'd chosen the ramp because the stairs had knocked the breath out of her. Walter was leaning into the wall, forearms resting on the ledge, staring out at the city lights as they switched on in the dusk. Paige exhaled through her nose and stepped next to him. "What are you doing up here?"

The genius shifted uncomfortably, dragging his hand over his mouth. She was about to mount another attempt to break his silence when he looked at her, his eyes clouded by pain she hadn't expected to see. "Are you going to leave again?"

"Leave where?" He seemed too agitated to be asking if they were leaving the garage to go home.

Walter dropped his head. "Ralph tried to be part of Scorpion and he got hurt again. Just like…" He trailed off, but Paige knew how that sentence ended. Her heart wrenched. The first time Ralph had been in serious danger, she'd packed them up to move across the country and Walter drove himself off a cliff. The team had nearly disintegrated because of it and Paige shuddered to think of how many awful things could have happened in the world because they gave up on Scorpion. "And you don't have any reason to stay, not when you and I are…" he gestured between them, still avoiding her eyes. "If you're going to leave, please just tell me now."

His body was tense and Paige wasn't sure how to read him. Perhaps she was too emotional to think clearly. But she'd questioned a thousand times after his memories resurfaced if the genius even wanted her around anymore, and that insecurity seeped into her weak voice when she asked, "D-Do you want us to?"

Walter glanced at her sharply before shaking his head. "No. I never…" He swallowed and straightened up, his expression suddenly turning pleading. "I can protect Ralph better. I know I failed today, but I'll do better. You d-don't have to leave."

Tears welled up in Paige's eyes and she moved a little closer, tentatively placing her hand on his elbow. When he didn't back away, she gripped the same spot on his other arm and curled her fingers into his shirt. "You didn't fail. You protected Ralph. I know you'll always protect him, Walter, I trust you." She let out a rough breath. "We're not leaving. And I'll reassure you of that as much as you need but right now…" Her face burned as moisture dampened her cheeks, but Walter was there and she was exhausted and she'd been so, so scared. "Right now, can you be the one holding it together? I really need you."

Paige didn't wait for his answer as she hooked her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. Walter could push her away if he wanted to. She wouldn't blame him. But he didn't, instead sliding his arms around her back and pulling her toward him as the side of his head rested against hers. She clutched his collar, melting into the warm contact. It didn't matter if this was temporary, if they were both just desperate for comfort and everything would fall apart again later. It didn't matter. She would deal with it then.

"Thank you," she whispered, his grip on her waist tightening in response. "Will you come downstairs and stay with me and Ralph?"

He nodded.


	38. The End?

He had to.

He'd lost control of his team, of his company, of his life. Walter could see that now. His friends had been withholding critical information under the guise of protecting him, and questioned his right to make authoritative decisions at every turn. They no longer seemed to respect him as a leader. Things needed to change.

Paige was a barrier to that. As long as she was there, he would be distracted. Her voice, her perfume—everything she did, everything she _was_ , would force him to remember. And he needed to forget.

As much as a genius with an eidetic memory could forget, anyway.

She'd known. For months. Plenty of time to tell him if she felt the same. Clearly, Paige had gotten swept up in the romantic atmosphere of wedding planning, as people were known to do. His hope for anything concrete, borne by her actions when they danced, was objectively foolish. If she didn't want to be with him by now, she never would. And he would never stop wanting to be with her.

That was one conundrum science was unable to resolve. He wanted to be angry at her, but he didn't know how. He certainly couldn't emulate Drew and leave her and Ralph to fend for themselves—the mere idea nauseated him. He had done everything within his power to ensure that they would transition comfortably. Thrive, even. And Paige was disgusted with him.

He didn't understand why the termination upset her so deeply, aside from the possible blow to her pride. He'd made clear that it was not a reflection on her performance. She had taken the job at Scorpion out of necessity. Surely she had other dreams for her future. The rest of the geniuses would struggle— _had_ struggled—to operate within the confines of a corporate environment, but he was confident that Paige would accomplish incredible things. She was incredible.

Once Paige saw the wisdom in his decision, a decision he'd made for both of their emotional wellbeing, his relationship with Ralph could return to its normal state. They could restore equilibrium. The team would soften, as they inevitably did, and Walter would go back to focusing on the continued growth of his company.

The silence in the garage was thick and deafening. It never used to be. Walter once found the lack of activity relaxing and conducive to extreme focus. Three years of relative chaos had changed that. Why had he ever veered from that original path, one that he knew led to accomplishment rather than complication?

That nagging doubt was combatted by Megan's voice, insistent, lecturing him not to be afraid of love. And he'd listened. He was by no means free of fear, but he had pushed it aside for her, for Paige, for Ralph, and the experimental was a colossal failure. Perhaps it was the wrong subject. The wrong woman.

Except Paige couldn't be the wrong woman. She was the _only_ woman.

Walter shook his head. He couldn't think like that anymore. The circumstances may have been less than ideal, but Paige was gone. And it was time to begin the long, arduous process of moving on.

* * *

Paige felt numb.

It had taken an eternity for Walter's cold words to sink in, but once they did, she couldn't escape the garage quickly enough. She'd given her heart and soul and very nearly her life to Scorpion, and he dismissed her like she was some temp from a staffing agency. Walter—her closest friend, her son's mentor, a man whom she admired even as he was driving her up a wall—turned out to be no better than other bosses who let her go with vague assurances that she could use them as a reference in the future.

Getting her a job with the most successful company in Los Angeles was admittedly more than a reference. As was a year's severance. Walter, _that emotionally stunted bastard_ , excelled in the practical care of his employees, and she knew he was incapable of watching Ralph struggle. But Scorpion was more than money, more than a job. She'd become nearly as invested in the company's mission and success as Walter himself. Paige didn't spend long hours there because it was necessary for the performance of her job. Scorpion was her family. The garage was her home. And she'd been kicked out, evicted just like all the other times she'd started to feel at home.

He couldn't understand why she was upset? He thought he could just throw cash her way and everything would be forgiven?

_Walter didn't do it to hurt you,_ Ralph had said when he got in the car, tugging on her sleeve to yank her out of her daze. _Mom, you can't leave it like this._

She'd merely shaken her head, _honey I can't talk to you about this right now_ falling from her lips, which only frustrated her son more.

_Mom, please. I'm like him. I understand._ It was only when she threatened him with a month of grounding that he'd settled, into a silence that would have been unnerving if she could even hear it over her internal screaming.

Yes, she lied and he was hurt and reacting poorly, but Walter had crossed a line he couldn't return from. He was the one person she'd come to expect would never abandon her. She hadn't…she hadn't even realized that, exactly, until he did. They were a heartbeat away from giving in to the intensity brewing between them, and Paige had a front-row seat as it crumbled the way it had a million times before. She'd put aside her fear and gotten rewarded with a harsh fall back to reality.

For that fleeting second between Ralph questioning her at the garage and Walter firing her, she wondered if her son was right. If she'd said exactly what she meant, wanted to say it without fearing his conscious reaction, curious what it would sound like out loud. But now she knew she never meant it. She couldn't.

And if she did, it no longer mattered.


	39. In the Stars

"Walter." Megan's breathing was labored and her eyes were glassy from the tears she was fighting. Her grip tightened on him, almost painfully, her nails digging into his skin and leaving indentations. "Tell them to stop. It hurts. Please make it stop."

Moisture welled up in his own eyes and he swallowed, squeezing her hand for reassurance. This was his fault. All of it. He'd battled her disease and lost. It was moments like this, when she was in tangible pain, that he desperately wanted to trade places with her. Megan was a bright, happy person who knew how to love. She could give the world so much more than he could. She could make it better. No one needed him the way that he needed her.

"I'm sorry," he managed, well aware that no apology would be enough to make up for his failure. "I'm sorry. I-I don't know how to fix this."

_She doesn't deserve this. She never did anything wrong. It should be me._

The fifth highest IQ ever recorded and it meant nothing. There was no point if it couldn't save her.

"I can't do this." Megan wasn't holding back the tears anymore. "Oh god, I can't do this."

Not knowing what to say, he slid his arms around her, suppressing shock at how thin she was now. How cold her skin felt. This wasn't his sister. This was a shell of the person he knew and Walter would never forgive himself for letting her down.

All he could do was let her sob against his shoulder.

* * *

"Walter." Her voice was soft. He missed it the first few times. The sheets were bunched between his fingers and he was sweating, his eyes darting around the loft until they landed on the woman next to him. "Hey. You were having a bad dream."

He looked away, already reaching for the covers to pull them off. "I have to go see Megan."

Paige reached out to grip his forearms, not letting go even when he tried to yank them away. "It's okay. Just breathe."

"M-My sister. I need to check on her. What time is it?"

"Okay. We can," she promised, rubbing soothing circles on his skin. "But Walter, think first. Where is Megan right now?"

"She's at the hospital." Paige already knew that. What was the purpose of her questioning?

The liaison released a deep breath. "Walter. I need you to think. Where is Megan?"

"She's—." _Dead._ The truth descended on him like an anvil, sucking the air from his lungs just as it had a thousand times before. Twenty months, six days, and the sting had barely lessened. "She's gone."

"Yeah." Paige placed her hands on his face, stroking her thumbs over his cheeks. Her expression was full of sympathy, the kind he usually hated but somehow welcomed from her. She offered him a sad smile. "In the stars. Not suffering. Not in pain."

Walter's eyes slipped shut and he focused on her even breathing to bring his own back under control. As the pounding in his chest subsided, he exhaled and released his grip on the sheets. "It feels real. When I dream about her."

"I know. Dreams can be really vivid." She raked her fingers through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp to soothe him, and Walter leaned instinctively into the contact. "I bet it's even more so, with your brain. All the details you keep in there."

"I'm sorry. I woke you up."

"No." Paige shook her head. "Don't ever apologize for thinking about her."

He was vaguely reminded of Halloween, when Paige admitted to lying about her family and he assured her that she had nothing to be sorry for. He supposed this was much the same. A scar from the past that would never completely heal.

She scooted backward, balancing her weight on her hands as she crossed her legs in front of her. Walter adjusted his position to face her, still too clammy to get back under the blankets, and savored the familiar sense of comfort when she wrapped her slim fingers around his hands. "Do you have dreams like that a lot?"

"S-Sometimes." Paige spending the night was still recent. He wondered if he should have warned her that this might happen. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel uneasy next to him. "Sometimes about Megan. Sometimes about…other things."

Paige didn't ask for clarification. Walter had enough destruction on his conscience to haunt him for decades. They didn't talk about it. But it was always there.

Her brow furrowed. "Did I handle it okay? I thought it might be too jarring if it came from me and I—."

"No. That was…that was the best option." The memories had to come back naturally, no matter how painful they were. In his disorientation, he wasn't sure he would have even believed that Megan wasn't alive. Walter cleared his throat. "Thank you."

"Yeah. Of course."

She wasn't pressing him, but Walter knew she liked when he discussed his emotions. Maybe opening up to her about his guilt would help with the dreams. But not tonight. "You should go back to sleep. I'll be fine."

"I can make some tea if you want."

The genius smiled. He wondered if she was like this when Ralph woke up from nightmares. Always ready to take care of the people she loved. "No. I'm just going to read for a while, if the light won't bother you."

Paige's loose T-shirt slid off her shoulder as she laid back down against the pillows, propping herself up on her elbow. "Why don't you read to me?"

"Are you sure?" Walter had only seen Paige read a few times, history textbooks for school or mystery novels for herself—certainly nothing that he had on hand. "Ralph asked for my opinion on a thesis he wrote. It's about metal alloys."

A teasing grin formed on her face. "I thought he was smarter than you."

"Oh, he is. I'm supposed to mark passages I don't understand so he can explain them more thoroughly."

"Perfect." She stretched her arms over her head and rolled over, draping herself across his chest as he sat up against the headboard. "Maybe I'll learn something. Or I'll fall asleep. It works either way."

* * *

Paige lasted longer than he predicted, asking questions about terms she didn't recognize until she dozed off fifteen pages in. He didn't want to disturb her by freeing his arm, so he'd settled for writing notes with his left hand while his right was trapped under her lower back. His eyes grew heavy by page forty-seven, and Walter shuffled down the mattress, gently kissing the top of Paige's head before shutting off the light on his side table.

Logically, he didn't believe Megan could see him right then, at that moment. But he wished she could.

Walter had no doubt she would be happy.


	40. Code of Conduct

_You're staring._

Walter looked at the message, his attention drawn by a flashing notification on the screen, and then back up to its sender. Paige gave him a shy smile before refocusing on the proposal form on her desk. It looked like she was blushing.

Heat crept into his own cheeks as his gaze dropped. He'd always struggled to keep his eyes off of her, if he was being honest. But now that he didn't have to chastise himself because  _she's dating someone else_ or  _we are strictly friends-slash-colleagues_ , the instinct was nearly uncontrollable. When the fate of the world wasn't in their hands, when lives weren't at stake, Walter couldn't think about anything else. More than once, he'd suggested putting a moratorium on work until an important case demanded their attention. Paige laughed. It wasn't a joke.

Walter's ability to lose himself in a project was typically an asset. Many of his greatest achievements had come after days or weeks of uninterrupted focus. But while he knew men were often single-minded about sexual matters, he'd never anticipated being one of them.

It wasn't  _just_ intimacy. He craved any time spent alone with Paige. Walter struggled to see her at her desk and not recall, in vivid detail, the way she looked in his bed. If she bit her lip while she was concentrating, he remembered her doing the same as she tried to quiet her moans. When she crossed her legs, letting her skirt hike up slightly, he was overwhelmed by the thought of how soft and warm her skin was under his hands. Every time she laughed, he pictured her giggling as they struggled with the logistics of joint showering.

He knew it was selfish to want unlimited access to Paige. She wasn't a project. She was a person with a life and responsibilities of her own. They were adults, not hormonal teenagers that lacked self-control. But he'd never desired someone like this and it was all-consuming.

_Sorry_ , he messaged back, feeling sheepish.

Walter heard her typing, but he kept his attention on the neuroscience article he'd long since abandoned reading. His public affection on the island had made her uncomfortable, but she responded favorably to many of his romantic overtures in a more private setting. There was middle ground somewhere, and he was determined to locate it.

_Don't worry. I like it. Just remember what we talked about._

He relaxed into his chair. Paige was mercifully adept at communicating what she felt was appropriate and what was not. While Walter had been content not to think about anything beyond the confines of his loft—for once—she thought it would be prudent to set ground rules for the garage once the team reconvened. "They already know," he'd protested. "They saw us in the closet, remember?"

"Yes. And that was awkward. Besides, think about how you feel when Happy and Toby flirt at work." Paige laughed at the grimace that appeared on Walter's face. "Exactly."

"Fine. What do you suggest?"

"No kissing."

"Acceptable."

"No hand holding. No pet names. Absolutely no discussion of our sex life. Especially if Toby asks."

The shrink had a seemingly neverending supply of innuendos and unsubtle winks. But Walter was no more inclined to discuss his own activities than to hear about Happy and Toby's. "Okay. What do I call you, then?"

"Paige. You call me Paige."

That was logical. Saving all nicknames for later did spare him the effort of deciphering which would actually be considered romantic.

"And Walter?"

"Yes?"

Paige sighed, stepping forward and clutching his collar in her fingers. "You have this habit of looking at me like…" Her cheeks glowed pink as she lifted her head to look at him. "Like you want to take me upstairs. And it's hot. But you can't do it at work. It's really, really distracting."

"I can't help it.  _You're_ distracting." Walter closed the gap between them, sliding his arms around her back. He didn't miss the way her breathing became a fraction shallower. "Every detail replays in my mind and i-it's impossible to turn off. Even when I want to."

"Because of your eidetic memory?"

She didn't look annoyed, just curious. But her assumption was not entirely accurate. Walter shook his head. "Because of you."

There wasn't much discussion after that.

* * *

Finally.

Walter enjoyed dinners with the team. He was often amazed to look around the table and realize much the team had changed. They were no longer just surviving. They were whole. They were happy.

But they'd lingered a little too long and Walter grew restless, especially when the beautiful woman next to him rested her hand on his thigh, moving her thumb in small circles. Her face betrayed nothing apart from interest in Happy and Allie's conversation, but it didn't take a genius to read her signals. He feigned a yawn that no one bought and the team cleared out inside of ten minutes. Ralph seemed thrilled to be spending the night working on a robotics project with Happy, which relieved Walter. He never wanted the young genius to feel pawned off, especially when he knew the pain of that sting himself.

Walter placed the last dish on the rack to dry and wiped off his hands. Paige was cleaning up on the roof and he wondered if he might surprise her there, perhaps suggest some stargazing or put on music to...

His thoughts ground to a halt as he processed her presence on top of his desk. Her legs were crossed, the white skirt she wore riding dangerously high, and her shirt was undone to the fourth button, revealing a glimpse of her lacy bra. She leaned back, tilting her head to the side and letting her hair flow down over one shoulder. Walter swallowed.

"Wh...What are you doing?" He hadn't even heard her come downstairs, but ever since their first night together, she'd displayed a talent for sneaking up on him. She was often minimally clothed during those encounters, so he wasn't complaining. But clearly Paige would be doing all the surprising tonight.

She smiled flirtatiously. "Seducing you."

"Oh."  _Duh._ They'd planned for her to spend the night, so there was really no reason to be caught off guard. Although he never presumed that she would be in the mood for physical intimacy, the odds were in his favor. "Let me close up the garage and we can go to the loft."

"Walter," she laughed, giving him an expectant look that almost certainly meant he was missing something.

His eyebrows shot up. "Here?"

Paige shrugged, swinging one of her legs back and forth lazily. He'd never much considered what women—or anyone, for that manner—was wearing, but her strappy heels had a strange effect on him that she knew exactly how to wield. "Don't tell me you haven't thought about it."

"Of course I've thought about it." Did he forget to turn the air conditioning on? He was warm. Possibly sweating. "B-But if we actually do it, I'll never be able to not think about it, and you've already complained about the way I look at you during work hours."

"Hm. That is a very logical argument." Walter was hit with a pang of disappointment,  _how did he always manage to ruin moments like this_ , but Paige merely reached up to pop another button loose. "So you're not interested, then?"

There wasn't much discussion after that either.


	41. EQ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed a distraction so I decided to write some short fluff. Hurricane Irma is heading toward us and while we aren't in an evacuation zone, and we've prepared as much as we can, the uncertainty is stressful. Plus I had an emergency root canal and my face is all swollen up. It's been a week. If any of my readers live in Florida, please be safe, we'll get through this. And for anyone else affected by Irma, Harvey, or the earthquake in Mexico, my thoughts are with you.

He'd lost out on so much.

Paige knew that she and Walter were different people. She was still more likely than he was to communicate through touch, to discuss her feelings as a way of processing them, to seek acceptance from others. But no matter how much the genius insisted he was immune to those needs, that his IQ put him above them somehow, she never quite bought it. And every day that she worked alongside Walter, she became more and more certain that he was lonelier than he cared to admit.

She saw hints of it, the first day they met. The pain of betrayal in his eyes every time he looked at Cabe. The awe and protectiveness he seemed to feel toward Ralph without a word spoken between them. The distress over his potential failure to save the lives of everyone stranded in the air.

His low EQ meant that he didn't feel love, fear, or guilt the way other people did. That's what he'd insisted, anyway. Paige thought it was bull.

His love was deep. His fear was deep. His guilt was deep. Walter tried to suppress it, to avoid being swallowed up by it, but it was always there, just under the surface. Usually he could successfully block it out to focus on the task at hand, but in quieter moments his emotions weighed heavily on him. They influenced everything he did. Logically, he wasn't responsible for the carnage in Baghdad, but that didn't stop him from constantly risking his life as penance. Logically, serious injury or death was a risk in every dangerous mission, but that didn't stop him from fearing for his team. Logically, he'd probably never considered raising a child of his own, but that didn't stop him from giving everything he had to Ralph.

Normal people typically sought someone to share that burden with. But Walter didn't know how. So for years, he'd rested it all squarely on his shoulders, never letting anyone get too close. Not his parents, certainly. Louise wanted to know her son—Paige could see that plainly—but loving him still couldn't help her understand him, and Sean's acceptance was growing but never quite complete. Not the people he grew up with, who doubted and mocked and tormented him. Not Janice or the handful of other women he'd dated, who dismissed him as an unsolvable puzzle. Not even Megan, the single most important person in his life. Her illness was and would likely always be Walter's greatest enemy. He'd distanced himself from her those last few years, so engrossed in saving her that he missed most of the time they had left. And no matter how many times Megan assured him it was her fight, Walter assumed the burden for that too.

Sometimes he cracked. That was inevitable. Even the strongest pane of glass could only take so much strain before it shattered. Driving off the cliff was the first crack, and the biggest. Breaking down in the garage was the second, and Paige remembered how thankful she had been that she could hold him and keep him safe instead of helplessly watching him cling to life. He held her back. He couldn't handle all of it alone. No one could.

Things got muddier between them, after that. Paige didn't like to think about it. When she first saw what kind of person he really was, hyperventilating outside the diner, when she saw his generosity toward Ralph and every act of selflessness that followed, her heart ached for him. He cared so much. Too much. And he never seemed to get enough back. Sometimes there was a connection he wanted but couldn't find, like Sean and Louise. Or an unavoidable loss, like Megan. A betrayal that opened fresh wounds, in Cabe's case. But with her, it was a conscious decision, stemming from his fear of failure. Paige insisted that she understood, but at the time, she didn't. She thought he was afraid of risking Scorpion. She'd failed to realize that he was afraid of risking her.

Paige spent so much time imagining what it would be like to finally love Walter the way she wanted, the way he deserved, that his rejection devastated her more than she expected. She resented him for pushing her away, for choosing another woman when her feelings were laid bare. Pining was too humiliating, so she disguised it under frustration and impatience. She lost herself in someone else, pushing  _him_ away even after he'd confessed his true feelings to her. She never thought she would be one more person withholding love from Walter, treating him with contempt instead of kindness, but at the time it felt like the only way to survive.

They couldn't erase that period of their lives. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe remembering how miserable she'd been giving into fear and pride instead of giving into Walter would help her not to take him for granted. He still didn't often initiate things between them, but the fervor with which he threw himself into kissing her, into intimacy, even into tangling up on the couch with her and Ralph while they talked into the late hours of the night proved to her what she'd always suspected. He craved this just as much as anyone. Needed this just as much.

Paige slid her hand down to cover his where it rested on her stomach. Sometimes it got hot when Walter was holding her like this, but she didn't want him to move. She wanted to love him any way she knew how, any way he asked her to, secure in the knowledge that he wanted the same for her. If this was what he needed, then she needed it too.

He was dead to the world and had no chance of hearing her, but she didn't mind. She was making up for lost time. "I love you," she murmured, drawing his arm tighter around her before she drifted back to sleep.


	42. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after "Sci Hard."

Paige saved the day.

It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, he was sure. But when he couldn't see a way out, when his singular thought was how to protect her and Elia from sustaining agonizing injuries, his girlfriend managed to save all of the hostages with the power of balloons.

She might have been  _normal,_ but she certainly wasn't  _average_. Walter knew it that first day when she sped through Los Angeles traffic, her fear overwhelmed by determination and—potentially—a need for accomplishment in a life dedicated to surviving rather than thriving. The same resourcefulness that enabled her to scrape together a childhood for Ralph had also equipped her to save countless lives with Scorpion, and he was constantly in awe of her.

There was a time when he admired her from afar. Showed his respect strictly as a boss who valued his employee's contributions. But things were different now.

"You were amazing today," he murmured, kissing the side of her head where it rested against his shoulder. Ralph was fast asleep at the other end of the couch, though Walter wasn't sure why when he'd neither been held hostage nor roped into pushing Cabe's hopeless cause of a vehicle. They started a movie and turned it off halfway through, too tired to follow a plot. He didn't mind. It used to take him hours and a bevy of half-finished projects to unwind after a mission. Just being with Paige and Ralph now, even when they were doing absolutely nothing, achieved the same calming effect much more rapidly. "I'm proud of you."

Paige laid her hand on his chest, toying with the top button of his shirt. Her actions were more affectionate than suggestive, this time, lacking the deliberate pace and sly smile that usually accompanied her seduction. He wasn't sure they'd be capable of reaching the loft tonight, let alone using his bed for a purpose other than sleep. "Thank you." She snuggled closer against him, a smile tugging at her lips. "Elia's right. We can't go anywhere without some sort of crisis erupting. Maybe we're bad juju."

"We go places without incident. Fro Yo Ma, the arboretum, and the science museum are still standing to the best of my knowledge."

"I'm kidding, Walter," she drawled patiently. Paige always said his name like that when she thought he was being ridiculous. She'd had that exact same tone after he declared his love for her. And after he confessed his fear of boring her. "Today was scary. But I guess it's a blessing when we're in the wrong place at the wrong time. At least we can help."

"Perhaps. Although…" Walter hesitated, even though he knew, logically, that Paige was receptive to hearing about his EQ challenges. "I don't like...seeing you in danger. It was a struggle t-to stay focused when he threatened you."

She sighed quietly, her hand stilling on his chest. "Yeah. I know. But we're safe now." Beside her, Ralph stirred, and Paige rubbed his calf soothingly until he settled again. "I don't like seeing you in danger either. I feel like I should make that clear before I say what I'm going to say."

Walter cocked his eyebrow, confused. "Okay?"

"It's, um…" She dipped her head, allowing her hair to fan forward and obscure his view of her face. He wondered if that was intentional because she was uncomfortable or embarrassed. "Pretty inevitable that we'll be in danger. That's the price of what we do. But for a long time, whenever either of us was facing a gun or a bomb or a toxin or...or whatever, I couldn't help thinking  _I won't get another chance. We're going to die without me ever telling him._ " Paige cleared her throat. "How I felt. I don't know why it was so important to me, it just was. That you knew. And now, at least...that doesn't weigh on me anymore. Because I've said it."

Walter was silent, surprised by her admission. Hearing those words seconds before death would have been of little use to anyone, but he couldn't deny that he'd felt a very similar urge when he was clinging to life on the side of a cliff.

While they were sharing… "I was grateful that I could h-hold you today." He paused, gathering his thoughts, and Paige waited, dropping her hand to cover his just above his knee. "Ever since the forest fire, I've wanted to...to comfort you. In frightening situations. But I wasn't sure how. Or I d-didn't think it was my place." Not when she'd been so angry with him that he almost thought she might like to see him shot. "I've always tried to protect you, but it's nice to...to show you...to, uh…" Walter grunted. "Never mind. I'm not making sense."

"Yes, you are." She laughed softly, squeezing his hand. "You like being able to show me that you're there for me. With me. I like that too."

Huh. She'd summed it up so succinctly. Once again, he underestimated how much Paige comprehended the parts of him that so few people ever had. "Yeah. Uh...that."

Paige chuckled again, a bit more amused than usual because of her exhaustion. Walter leaned back against the cushions and propped his feet on the coffee table, balancing one hand on her hip to bring her with him. She obliged, resting her cheek against his chest and tucking her legs behind her on the couch. Her breathing was deep and steady and Walter knew it wouldn't be long before they both surrendered to sleep.

Just a few days ago, he'd been enlisting her help to win over the Vor Collective. Raising them onto a pedestal as if joining them validated his intelligence. Made him worthwhile.

But their approval was utterly hollow without the support and acceptance of the woman in his arms. He saw it clearer now. That was what mattered. That was enough.

This was his home.


	43. Reciprocated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I liked "Christmas Car-Roll" for the most part but the ending bugged me (as it was meant to) so...consider this a therapy fic. Partly based on the synopsis for the upcoming ep Bunker Games.

She knew something was wrong.

Of course she knew. No one had ever been able to read him as plainly and openly as her. If he'd been any more off, any more distracted, that bunker would have been the end of all of them. And Walter had no interest in dying surrounded by palpable tension and thinly-veiled jabs.

He never put much stock in dreams. They were a jumble of elements processed during consciousness, reassembled into often illogical sequences. He'd imagined the rest of the team in situations that had no bearing in reality.

But fundamentally, they were still  _them._ Toby still loved Happy, Sylvester was still a perfectionist, Cabe was still the toughest person he knew. Paige was a master at corralling the geniuses, Ralph was a brilliant introvert, and Patty was inescapable. He saw them in his dreams the way he saw them in life, and there was really no other conclusion to draw than that the same applied to Florence.

The dream represented everything wrong, everything out of order. A life where he'd never met Paige and Ralph, where conceivably he could have entered a relationship with a woman like Florence out of default, never knowing what it felt like to love someone so much it could cause intense joy and even stronger pain. But even now, weeks later, he couldn't look at Florence without the image of their wedding photo and the feel of her kissing him searing through his brain anew. He was confused and panicked, and the only person he could trust to help him through it was the one person it would hurt.

"Walter? Babe," Paige said emphatically, causing the genius to rewind and realize that she'd been calling his name repeatedly. She stepped closer, running her hand gently through his hair and looking at him with concern. "Are you okay? Does your head hurt?"

He drew in a breath, focusing on her. Besides the occasional ache and some ringing in his ears, his injury had healed fairly well thanks to Toby's impromptu surgery. This was about his head betraying him in a different way. "No. Um..." Walter glanced around the garage as the rest of the team was pouring glasses of overly expensive champagne, a gift from a recent client. His eyes landed on Florence in the corner and he looked away quickly before she could meet his gaze. "Actually, yes," he lied. "Can we go upstairs?"

"Yeah, of course." Paige slid her fingers down his arm, taking his hand and leading him toward the loft. He hadn't been able to come up with a good pretext for refusing the chemist's presence at the garage, and her early distaste for Scorpion appeared to have faded, leaving him in a difficult and awkward position.

It was absurd. All of it. Walter rarely had difficulty controlling his thoughts, but perhaps Paige's attempts to expand his limited EQ had finally backfired.

She directed him to sit on the bed, kneeling down in front of him and peering carefully at his pupils. "Should I go get Toby? He's a little deep into the bottle right now, but he can do a quick checkup. Or I can call Dr. Hasberg. Do you want some ice?"

The clear worry in her voice sent a fresh wave of guilt through Walter, and he took her hands to stop her as she reached for his face again. "Paige, I, uh..." He swallowed. This nagging feeling wouldn't abandon him as long as he hid the truth from her. No matter her reaction, a confession was long overdue. "I need to tell you something."

Her expression darkened, and Walter supposed he was more surprised than he should have been when she responded, "About Florence?"

"How did you..."

"You've been acting weird around her for a while." Paige slowly pushed to her feet, taking a seat next to him on the edge of the mattress. Her fidgeting hands in her lap told him she was equally nervous. "You avoid her when she's here but you keep staring at her. I kinda convinced myself it was nothing, but clearly I was wrong." She bit her lip. "I'd appreciate it if you told me the truth. I've heard enough lies for a lifetime."

Walter rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly feeling hot enough to spontaneously combust. He was such a moron. Of all the ways he'd imagined disappointing Paige, this was never one of them. "I-I'm sorry. I d-don't know why I was married to her in my dream b-but I d-did have a head injury and now I'm at a loss as to—."

"Wait. What?" she interrupted, angling toward him. "This is about your dream? When you were unconscious?"

"Y...Y-Yes?" he said uncertainly.

Paige exhaled sharply, clasping her hands over her mouth. "Oh my god," she breathed. "You haven't...with Florence?"

"Haven't what?"

She glared at him. "Don't be dense, Walter. Have you done anything physical with her? In real life?"

"No!" Walter exclaimed quickly, cursing himself again for causing her unnecessary concern. How long had she been carrying that burden because he was too hesitant to tell her the truth? "W-We kissed in my dream. But we were married. I h-had a ring. We were professors."

Paige sighed again, a weak laugh escaping her lips. "You can't face Florence because you feel awkward about your dream?"

He gulped. "Yes. Thinking about being married to anyone except you is...it's..."

"Cheating?" Paige asked softly, tilting her head as he silently nodded his. "Walter, I've been cheated on. And this isn't it. First of all, you were dying. Your brain was a mess. And we didn't even know each other in your dream, right?" He nodded again. "Second of all, dreams are just that. Dreams. They don't always reflect reality. Hell, I kissed Happy in a dream once."

Walter's eyes widened involuntarily and Paige laughed at his obvious surprise.

" _Third_ of all, the fact that you care enough about my feelings to feel guilty about this means a lot to me." She scooted closer, tangling both of her hands with one of his. There was a moment of silence before she asked, "Are you afraid...I mean, do you...did it bother you because you feel like you have feelings for her?"

_No, of course not, don't be preposterous._ But he didn't say that. It wasn't fair to Paige to dismiss her suggestions out of hand when he wasn't entirely sure what his feelings meant. "I d-don't know. I'm s-so confused because I..." He shook his head. "I love you. I-I've wanted this for so long. There's no room for anything else, right?"

Paige shifted, looking down at their joined hands. "I don't know, Walter. Attraction is a weird thing. And I don't...I don't  _love_ the idea of you feeling a connection with anyone else, but Florence is a lot like you. It makes sense that you might connect to her in some way." She lifted her head, an odd mix of fear and understanding in her eyes. "But I can't relive what happened with Drew, so if there's any part of you that wants to pursue this, you need to be honest with me now."

The idea of repeating the baseball player's mistakes made him physically nauseated. He'd felt... _something_...with Linda, too, but nothing even a fraction of what he felt for Paige. No one would ever come close to that. Visiting a world in which she didn't know him, didn't remember everything they'd been through together or the family they'd built, was an unsettling reminder of what an existence without her would be like. "There's nothing I need from anybody else." He squeezed her hands, his eyebrows knitting together. "I-In my dream I said that you had helped me the most in the world. And that's true. N-Not just with my EQ, but with everything. I would still be living only a fraction of my life if I hadn't met you and I doubt I ever would have understood what it actually felt like to be...happy." Her eyes were large, glassy, which he hoped meant she believed him and not that he'd upset her. "You don't have anything to be concerned about. And I only—."

"State facts," she finished, smiling. "I know."

"I k-know I should probably say it more, but it's always...true. T-That I love you."

Paige leaned forward, pressing her lips soundly against his and dropping her hands to the front of his shirt when she pulled back. "Reciprocated."


	44. New Year's Eve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s some completely unnecessary New Year’s Eve Waige fluff, enjoy.

Walter didn't care about New Year's Eve.

But it was a far cry from Paige's first year at Scorpion, when she'd had to cajole them to throw together some kind of celebration for each holiday. No one was surprised now when she began to decorate the garage and order food and load music onto a playlist. Everyone fell in line naturally. They'd started to expect it. Maybe even anticipate it.

Paige reappeared with a fresh glass of champagne in her hand, sliding her arm around his waist and leaning her head on his shoulder. His whole body seemed to warm instantly. If that type of physical contact was ever going to become mundane, it hadn't happened yet. "I can't wait for this year to be over."

"Really?" he asked, looking down but unable to read her expression in this position. Walter was surprised and a little concerned by her statement. Had this been a less satisfying year for her than for him?

"Yeah. I'm still having dreams about waking up on that stupid island." Well, that had been an unpleasant experience...in hindsight. At the time, Walter's overactive EQ had blocked him from feeling the appropriate amount of frustration. "And Cabe's case, just way too stressful. I'm ready to put it behind us."

"Oh. Of course." Her points were valid. He couldn't argue that they had encountered a myriad of personal and professional hurdles, more life-threatening than the typical person might experience. But… "I-It wasn't all bad, was it?"

Paige straightened up to look at him, understanding dawning on her face when she saw the concern on his. "Walter," she said with a small laugh, reaching up to stroke his cheek with her thumb. "I wasn't talking about us. I mean...yeah, there were some not-great times before we got together." The genius cringed. Firing her had definitely not been his finest hour. "But everything after that has been great. Really great."

He nodded, mollified by her assurance. "I know it's taken me some time to, uh, learn the ropes of being a boyfriend. I appreciate you being patient with me."

Paige smiled, moving closer until there was almost no space between them. "I've had to do some learning too. But you've got the important things down, Walter. Just being there for me and Ralph." She tilted up on her toes, her lips near his ear. "And some things you're a natural at."

The genius blushed. She didn't need to spell it out; her seductive tone was all the clue he needed.

"A-And, uh…" Walter stammered to change the subject, lest his mind get too wrapped up in Paige's body before he could do anything about it, "this was a good year for everyone else too. Mostly."

Paige took a sip of her champagne, scanning the garage for their friends. "It's true. Cabe and Allie. Happy and Toby getting married, trying to have a baby. Sylvester kicking butt as alderman." She grinned, bumping his shoulder with hers. "Can you imagine what it would be like if you'd never brought them all together?"

Actually, he could. And it was...lonely. "It's not my doing. Everyone was miserable before you came along, including me. You made it like this."

Her cheeks pinked. She always got a bit self-conscious when he told her what she meant to the team, but he never wanted her to question if he valued her contributions. It was impossible to overstate her impact on the geniuses. On him.

"Both of us," she said, giving him a quick peck on his cheek. "The mom and dad of Scorpion."

Walter suppressed a smile. Sylvester had been calling them that long before they were together, and it would be a while before he told Paige what he admitted to Happy about potentially wanting children. But just the suggestion of it sounded...nice.

He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her to him and kissing the top of her head. This wasn't work; PDA was acceptable. Sometimes, even when they were on a case, his need to be affectionate with Paige won out over his desire for strict professionalism.

She relaxed against his chest, putting one hand over his. "I'm really happy, Walter."

"Me too." It was only thirty-four minutes past eleven, but something compelled him to say it anyway. Perhaps the knowledge that she might appreciate his effort to embrace the occasion. "Happy new year, Paige."

She smiled, alerting him to his success. "Happy new year."


	45. With You

Paige flopped back against the couch, taking advantage of Walter's outstretched arm to rest her head on his shoulder and curl up against him. "He's finally out," she sighed, sparing a glance toward the bed, where Meatball was fast asleep and snoring loudly. Walter hadn't exactly offered those accommodations, but he didn't seem put out by them either. Not every night was an ideal one to stay over at the garage, they knew when they got together that would be the case, and their spontaneous intimacy would just have to wait a bit. Meatball's interruption had effectively killed the mood, anyway.

And she was exhausted. Saving Griffin and Rachel had been mentally and emotionally taxing, even compared to their other missions.

"You did good today, Walter. That was…a lot." She lifted her hand, playing absently with the buttons on his shirt. "As if babysitting isn't stressful enough."

He laughed quietly. "I may not have arrived at the solution in time without them. They were all invaluable."

"Even Meatball?" she smirked.

"Especially Meatball. I discounted him too quickly. I've spent enough time with you and Cabe to recognize that brilliance comes in many forms."

Paige smiled at the indirect compliment. "I heard everything you said to them, you know."

His grimace was visible in her peripheral vision. Walter cleared his throat. "Yes. I know I was…curt."

"No, Walter. I mean…yes, work on that." She couldn't say she didn't understand the frustration of herding a group of children. Several times she'd volunteered to chaperone Ralph's field trips and briefly considered leaving his classmates behind in whatever dinky museum they visited. "But I meant the other stuff. When we were waiting for them to fall into the net. You surprised me."

"In a good way or a bad way?"

Paige huffed out a laugh. "Good way." She paused, contemplating the cosmic injustice of the very thing she was proud of Walter for impeding her ability to show that pride in the way she'd wanted. "You apologized to them. Connected with them. Built up their self-esteem. All good things."

Walter was quiet for a long minute and she could practically hear the gears turning in his head. "Apologizing to them was the correct course?"

"Absolutely. I've had to apologize to Ralph a bunch of times. All parents make mistakes, Walter. Having the humility to admit it can go a long way toward earning a child's respect."

"Hmm. Thank you. I will keep that in mind."

Paige hesitated, her next question stuck on her tongue. It wasn't that strange. This was something serious couples talked about. When she'd first started to wonder, the answer seemed almost glaringly obvious. But Walter was nothing if not complex, and anyone could see that he had a certain soft spot for children. "Do you ever…think about it?" She shrugged. "Having your own kids?"

The genius stiffened slightly, his silence stretching on much longer this time, and Paige shook her head, feeling stupid. She wasn't even entirely sure where she stood on the issue, and Walter was certain to think she was asking for reasons more binding than curiosity. "Never mind. Forget I said anything. We don't need to go there."

She exhaled, shutting her eyes, opening them again when Walter moved his arm. He ran a hand through his hair, scratching the back of his neck nervously. "I-I'm not uncomfortable with the question, Paige."

Her concern subsided, replaced with another wave of surprise. "You aren't?"

"No. It's just unexpected. I wasn't sure when in our relationship that discussion would become pertinent."

Paige wasn't either, if she was being honest. Ralph hadn't exactly been the result of a thorough, reasonable conversation about raising children. And none of the other—admittedly few—men she'd dated ever sparked that thought in her mind. She supposed the fact Walter had was telling. "There isn't a wrong answer. I have no idea at this point if I ever want more kids. I've just always wondered." She tilted her head, meeting his eyes. "The way you treat Ralph, the way you were with those kids today…the way you act  _every_  time our mission involves children…you might not be half bad at it, you know."

Walter raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical. "You lectured me about my choice of language several times."

Yes. She had done that. It occurred to her that this conversation must seem strange to him, considering her previous behavior. "I might have overreacted due to other factors," she admitted, pressing her lips together. "But you protected the kids during an emergency while saving two lives. That's no joke."

"Well, thank you." He cocked his head, thinking for another moment. "Before you, a-and Ralph, I don't think I ever imagined it as a realistic prospect. I'm…not against it, I guess. B-But I have reservations."

"Like?"

"Like…the child being a genius and suffering through childhood the way all of us did. O-Or being normal and struggling to understand me, and vice versa. And like today, what if the child needs my attention while lives are at risk? How do I balance those responsibilities with my responsibility toward Scorpion?"

Paige blinked. "Wow. You really have thought about this."

Walter nodded, shooting her a guilty look. "I'm sorry if that's not the answer you were hoping for."

"I wasn't hoping for any answer. I just…" She shifted, draping both of her legs over one of his. "I mean, Ralph is living proof that things don't always go according to plan. So if something happens, I'd like to know that you're open to the idea, at least. And if you want kids—or if you decide at some point that you do—I want to know. I think we skipped over the 'too early to talk about the future' part of our relationship."

The corner of Walter's mouth tugged up and he slid his hand down to take hers. "I'm not, uh…" He coughed. "I'm not sure, yet. But if I ever do…it would only be with you, Paige."

She grinned, an unexpected flutter in her chest. "Good to know."


	46. The First

"I can't believe we lost," she lamented, smoothing the flat sheet in place. Neither of them were in the mood for household chores, but she'd felt so gritty between the beach and the nuclear reactor and after her shower she'd just wanted everything to feel  _clean,_ his bedding included. "Are we sure they didn't cheat?"

Walter chuckled, shaking his pillow the rest of the way into the pillowcase. "Well, they've known each other longer. And they are married. And we only lost by one question. Hardly a humiliating defeat."

She sighed. "I guess." Paige was a competitive person by nature, even when the odds weren't in her favor. And despite Happy and Toby's advantages, Paige was confident that she knew her boyfriend inside and out. Not that he couldn't surprise her sometimes. Recognizing a couple's marital difficulties and showing compassion, for instance. "We need to get our stories straight about this stupid kiss. For next time."

Walter cleared his throat, an odd expression on his face. "I thought we decided on Kovelsky's. I was…surprised that you changed your mind?"

Paige shrugged. "I said it because I thought that's what you would say. I'm surprised you changed your mind." She looked at him across the bed, giving him a teasing grin. "My stubborn genius."

"Mm. Yes."

He turned his attention to the other pillow, not mirroring her smile like he usually did. Paige stopped what she was doing and sat on her side of the bed, waiting for him to look at her again. "Wait, are you still mad?" she asked, slightly annoyed that he'd only pretended to let it go. "I thought we agreed this was a pointless fight."

Walter shook his head. "It was."

"But?" She crossed her legs in front of her, raising an eyebrow curiously when he hesitated. "Come on, Walter, we agreed to talk about this stuff."

"I know." He blew out a breath through his nose, pushing the pillows aside and sitting tentatively on the edge of the mattress. "It, uh..i-it bothers me that you don't consider our kiss in the garage our first."

Paige sighed, preparing herself for another lecture on the nature of chronology. "Why? Does it bug you that much that we have different opinions?"

"No, of course not." The genius frowned, seeming taken aback by her assumption. "I understand that experiences are subjective and...and I'm sorry if I argued my point too aggressively. The truth is that I knew it upset me, but I didn't understand why, until...later." Paige wasn't sure how to answer, so she pressed her lips together, consciously relaxing her body language so Walter could feel comfortable explaining himself to her. "You said it wasn't romantic. It was just an experiment. And I know that's what we both said at the time. But I thought that…" He ran his palms over his knees. "I didn't realize at the time I was in love with you. Obviously. But I knew I had feelings for you, and that was a important moment in my life. And I suppose it just bothers me to discover that it didn't mean anything to you."

Paige's heart dropped fifty stories. She didn't know why it hadn't occurred to her that Walter attached special significance to that night. Physically, the kiss had electrified her, made her lips and hands tingle for days afterward remembering how he felt under them. But so much had happened since then, and whatever emotions it stirred up were buried as he continually push her away.

"Walter," she said quietly, the words failing to come to her for a moment. Paige reached out, taking his hands in hers, rubbing her thumbs over his fingers soothingly. "Of course it meant something. Every second I spend with you is important to me. But I just don't like thinking about that night. That whole mission, really."

"Why?"

There was hurt in his voice that he tried to hide, but it was all Paige could hear. "Because it was a false start. We admitted our feelings for each other, we had this amazing kiss, and then...then we just backed off. It didn't lead anywhere because we kept making excuses not to let it. And so if I think of that as our first kiss, then all the running and dating other people and being awful to each other, it's...it's a reminder of how much time we wasted hiding. But if the kiss at Kovelsky's was our first, then you told me you loved me and we were together and none of the other stuff counts. Do you understand?"

The loft was silent for a long minute as Walter considered her explanation. Then he nodded, squeezing her hands. "I understand the, uh, desire to revise certain parts of our history."

"Yeah." There was so much she wished she could do over again. But they had eventually fumbled to the right place, so it wasn't all a loss. "Please don't think that I didn't care about you then. I've wanted to be with you for so long I don't even remember when I realized it." Her mouth curved, her hands coming up to cradle his face. "But it's nothing compared to how I feel about you now."

Walter smiled, lighting up in the way that always made her melt internally. Paige drew him to her, tangling her fingers in his hair as they shared a slow kiss. Warmth rushed through her body and she eased onto her back, bringing the genius down on top of her.

"I think we can both agree," she mumbled against his lips, "that we have a  _lot_ of time to make up for."


	47. Sleep

Two days, three hours, forty-six minutes.

Three thousand, one hundred and six minutes since the explosion had knocked Walter unconscious. She was vaguely aware of shouting his name as Cabe stopped her from running into the embassy. Everything after that was a blur of paperwork and medical terminology she wouldn't have understood even if her head wasn't a mess.

He was in a medically-induced coma. That was different. They could bring him out of it, when his injuries stabilized. Toby feigned confidence that Walter would be awake within a few days. Sylvester assured her that his odds of a full recovery were sixty-four percent.

But that wasn't a hundred percent. And Paige wasn't anywhere near sixty-four percent okay.

The team practically begged her to go home and sleep. She knew that was the logical course. If Walter was cognizant, he would tell her there was nothing she could do at the hospital. But he wasn't. So she stayed.

She'd forced a reluctant Ralph to follow his normal routine under Happy and Toby's care, which was probably hypocritical. She would debate that with herself later. All she knew was that if it was her, Walter would never leave her side. For anything.

It was dark, and quiet, save for the quiet typing by a nurse at the station fifty feet away. Paige unscrewed the cap on her water bottle, swallowing a small sip to soothe her scratchy throat. Keeping herself fed and hydrated was all she could promise. The others would give her a hard time if she neglected to take care of herself. And she didn't want Ralph to see her struggling, anyway. He didn't deserve to be as scared as she was.

The geniuses were, too, even if they hid it under facts and figures. Walter had been injured before—not a surprising side effect of his tendency to literally run headfirst into danger—but they'd always saved him. There was something they could  _do_ , no matter how risky or insane. What she wasn't used to was waiting. Sitting there in a cold hospital room, knowing that he would probably be okay but that  _probably_  wasn't a guarantee she could hold onto.

Paige adjusted the blanket on her lap, sliding her feet under it. The chair wasn't so bad. It wasn't a hard, plastic frame with stiff armrests, at least. Cabe made sure she had something more comfortable, something she could move directly next to the bed when she was staying there overnight. She took advantage of the position and rested her elbows on the mattress, taking his right hand between two of hers. It was colder than usual. One thing she loved about Walter was how warm his skin always was.

Toby was adamant that the genius could hear them, though there was no way to confirm it yet. But Walter's brain was special. She didn't think it could hurt, if only to break up the steady, shrill beeping of his monitors.

"Hey," she said softly, rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb. "So Ralph designed an upgrade for your security footage software. He's really excited to show it to you. He finished it while we were hanging out here. And all I've accomplished was reading three issues of  _People_." She let out a halfhearted laugh. "Well, that's not entirely true. I filled out some expense reports and, uh, files from our last couple cases. I've been fielding calls from clients, too. All day. Some of them heard and wanted to see how you were. Others wanted to hire us. I told them we would call when we were available. I hate…not giving them a solid date. I would suggest that the rest of us take on the jobs, but we just can't right now. Not like this."

Paige bit her lip, holding back…tears? Frustration? Fear? She wasn't even sure anymore.

"I told you not to go in there, you know. This is probably the wrong time for an 'I told you so,' but you can't argue with me, so I'm going there." She squeezed Walter's hand, so he would know she wasn't really mad. "But you were so sure you could stop the kidnapping. Because you're Superman, right? Always ready to jump into the fray. Except you're not bulletproof. You're not invincible."

Neither was she, which never stopped her. The high of saving people, of doing something with her life that made a difference, was too powerful to give up. She would never ask Walter to leave it behind, either. It was his purpose. That didn't make this any easier.

"I just…Walter, I need you to wake up soon. I'm going crazy here. We all are. I mean, you're  _always_ okay. Every time I think I've lost you, you just show back up like nothing happened. But each time, I think the next time we won't be so lucky. And I'm afraid that if I let myself think everything will be okay, that will be the one time it isn't. I know you would say that was illogical. I'm not even sure I'm making sense right now. To be fair, I'm running off five hours of sleep and like ten granola bars."

His pulse wasn't strong, but Paige could feel it. Just like she could see the outline of his pale face in the light from the machines. Having him simultaneously there and not there was the strangest feeling in the world. Every once in a while, she caught herself wondering if this might be their new normal. There was a chance. She didn't know what to do with that possibility.

Paige reminded herself to breathe. They'd faced worse odds of success than sixty-four percent. And Walter was stubborn. He wouldn't give up that easily. He had too much left to do.

"I need you to be okay. The team needs you. Happy and Toby and Sylvester, they won't know what to do. You gave them a home, and a family, and meaning. A use for their gifts. Even if they don't always listen to you, trust me, they need you. And Cabe…" She drew in another rough breath. "Cabe can't lose another kid. He's not gonna make it through that. Not again."

The machines were beeping. The nurse was typing. Walter's hand was cold. She was talking, and nothing was changing. Like the world around her was frozen, and it didn't even have the decency to freeze her along with it.

Talking about the team was easy. Easier. Walter probably deserved better than that. "I need you," she continued, her voice faltering. Paige cleared her throat. "I hate how much I need you, actually. You don't know how many times, when I was cradling Ralph in my arms because I couldn't afford to run the heat in my apartment, that I told myself I would never rely on anyone. That I could do it on my own. I kept him alive and safe. That was all I could do. I couldn't…understand him, make him happy, and this plan never even factored in my own happiness, by the way. I'd more or less given up on that entirely.

"And then you showed up at that crappy diner, telling me how terrible my nail polish and shoes looked." She smiled despite herself. "I don't know how you did it. Just became everything we were missing, and you didn't even realize it, or expect anything in return. For the first time, I thought…maybe Ralph and I could both be happy. Maybe that wasn't so crazy after all."

Paige swallowed hard, reaching for her water again. The tears were starting to impair her vision, and she wasn't in the mood to become a blubbering mess at the moment. She was too exhausted.

"It's just my luck that you weren't an accountant or a delivery guy instead of someone who fights terrorists and disarms nuclear weapons. If you survive this time, I know we'll be back here again. And that makes me crazy, but what can I do? This is what we chose. I chose you." She leaned closer, brushing her lips against his knuckles before bringing his hand to rest against her chest. "And god, Walter, you took so long to choose me. We wasted three years and now we're  _finally_ where we're supposed to be, and you don't get to just walk out on that. You owe me. You owe me at least three years together, and hopefully a lot longer than that.

"More importantly, you owe Ralph. He doesn't deserve to lose you. I know you hate being compared to Drew, but…you know what? I don't care if this makes you mad. If you die, then you're worse than Drew. Because at least Drew came back."

She hoped he was angry. Strong emotions could only help him now. Help him fight.

"So prove me wrong and come back, Walter. I love you, and Ralph loves you, and I know you love us even when you don't say it. You've already given us so much, but I'm just asking for one more thing. That you stick around." Paige blinked, wetting her dry lips with her tongue. "Being with you is…weird. And difficult. And aggravating. But I don't want to go back. I don't ever want to go back to our life before you."

There were no magic words that would wake him up. No true love's kiss, like the fairytales she loved when she was a kid. All she could do was hope that for once in her life, she was enough to come back to.

"Goodnight, Walter," she murmured, pulling the blanket over her shoulders and clutching his hand tight in hers as she drifted off to sleep.


End file.
